From The Ashes
by Talye Kendrin
Summary: Nick Fury recruits a healer for the Avengers team. They soon learn that the flighty woman is more superhuman than they thought, and a certain part-time giant green rage monster finds he may have found someone that could actually withstand the Other Guy. Eventual Bruce/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hey-o! *ducks random thrown objects* Whoa. I realize I've been gone for months, leaving my Supernatural and Dexter fanfics both high and dry by way of updates, but I had some college setbacks and was severely lacking in writing muse for a while there. I'm trying to get back in the saddle this month with writing on a Marvel Avengers idea that I've had for quite some time, so spare me please. Monthly updates for my other two fanfics will start up again in May.

As for this story... I hope you like it! I do hope I make Amrita both believable and likeable. Seeing as this is a (Camp) NaNoWriMo story, I'll be updating regularly, likely every other day due to the chapter length I like to have, for the next month.

Don't forget to give feedback/review! There will be minor changes from the film but nothing major, and this story will continue on with its own plot after the events of the film have been covered.

* * *

"Target is leaving the village, headed north-by-northeast. Target is likely headed home. Orders to pursue?" The agent said, lying completely still in her concealed spot on the rooftop despite the discomfort she felt, fully geared (discretely, of course, though that simply added to her discomfort as she had to have her weapons strapped in very strategic yet inconvenient places) for her mission in the scorching Indian summer's heat.

_"Roger that. Pursue the target at a safe distance until she arrives at home and secure the perimeter. Agent Romanoff and a small team will join you shortly to take the target in. Remember, the target has no history of violence, but she is to be treated as a potential threat should anything go wrong. Good luck, agent."_

"Orders received. Agent out."

* * *

Amrita Mehrotra was different from most people that were native to India, even to the naked eye. With skin paler than should be possible to have without a copious amount of either burning or tanning from all the time spent outdoors, brown hair that shone auburn in the sunlight, and golden eyes, people tended to be wary of her despite the fact that she had lived outside the same village long enough to be known by everyone who lived there. Or perhaps that was simply another contributing factor to why they were all so wary of her. When she thought about it, it seemed quite reasonable to believe that was so.

Tugging at the neckline of her cream-and-green sari, Amrita found herself wondering for the umpteenth time that summer whether she shouldn't move to someplace with cooler weather once and for all. She had been wondering for the past few years whether it wasn't time for a change of scenery. After all, the only human interaction she ever got anyways was when people had medical emergencies they couldn't trust anyone else with; ones that would almost certainly result in death.

It wasn't that she didn't like helping people—she did, really. However, for once in her life, she felt as though she wanted to make the effort to find her own niche in the world, rather than simply staying in the land of her birth. It was special to her, undoubtedly. But she simply found herself wondering…what else could there possibly be to see and do in the world? Besides, what with the incident that happened a few months back, she found herself growing restless staying in such a place that made her mind dwell on the negative…

Amrita exhaled through her nose, deciding to ponder her agitation with the land of her birth later. Pulling aside the curtain she used in place of an actual door for her out-of-the-way little stucco house, she stepped out of her sandals, shoving them to the side with her foot. She started towards the kitchen, but she paused in her tracks, narrowing her eyes.

"Why don't you just come out?" she said to thin air. "I'd rather we talked before you pull your gun on me."

There was a pause before a woman with bright red hair stepped out into view, her feet not making a sound against the tile flooring. The woman looked her over from head to toe, seeming to be assessing how much of a threat she posed. Amrita resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the woman's behavior.

"So who are you with, then? FBI? No, you look like you could be Russian…not KGB? I doubt they could've tracked me down the fastest, though, too many other things take priority over someone like me…"

The woman's face gave nothing away, but she seemed to deem fit to answer anyways.

"I'm with SHIELD. I'm here to take you in." She held her hands out in front of her, as though to placate Amrita. "Without using force, if possible."

Amrita wracked her brain, trying to recall anything she might have heard in the past about SHIELD. She could only recall hearing about it once, shortly after its formation. They had gotten a lot better at covering their tracks after that. Nowadays, it was just a thing of rumor. She remembered when she had heard about it, one of the founders had been involved in the only successful Super Soldier project to date. Perhaps, if they were involved in more of those kinds of things…she supposed she had nothing to lose by going to find out. The worst thing that could happen was that she wouldn't escape intact, but even if she didn't escape intact, she would just end up back here in the end…

Amrita ran her hands down the front of her sari, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles. She raised her eyes back to the agent in front of her, hesitating before holding her hand out—slowly, so as not to startle the agent into reaching for the concealed gun that she could smell the metal bullets of on the stagnant air.

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves then, if I'm going to be letting you kidnap me. Amrita Mehrotra," she said as the redhead tentatively grasped her hand, dropping it quickly after shaking it once.

"You can call me Natasha," she said briskly. Very business-like.

Amrita smirked. "Well then, Natasha," she said cheekily, "take me to your leader."

Natasha fixed her with a blank stare, causing Amrita to frown.

"Note to self…don't expect government agents to have a sense of humor," she grumbled to herself as the redhead moved towards the doorway, placing a hand on Amrita's back as though to 'guide' her, but Amrita felt as though it was more so that she would be able to grab her quicker if she tried to make a break for it. That seemed the more likely reason, anyway. Amrita quickly shoved her feet into her sandals before they stepped out of the house, and it didn't escape her attention that there was now a government-issue Jeep waiting for them, with two other agents sitting in the front. Amrita climbed into the back, Natasha sliding in behind her. They had barely sat down before the driver stepped on the gas.

"We have one more stop before we head back to headquarters," Natasha informed her before staring out the window, all but ignoring Amrita.

"O…kay," Amrita said, not sure how to feel about that. What in the world could they be doing? Were they going to be kidnapping another person that SHIELD had taken interest in? She wanted to ask so many questions. How had SHIELD found her? Did they know the full extent of her powers? She bit the inside of her cheek to hold in the questions. It would probably be best to ask the person in charge all of her questions rather than one of the agents. They'd probably just tell her to wait and ask the person in charge anyways.

It was a very long feeling two hours' drive before they stopped again, and Natasha slid out of the Jeep, walking until she was out of sight. The driver pulled the Jeep into a back alley and pressed a hand to what she assumed was an earpiece.

"Agents Domingo and Vale ready for pick-up," he said, pausing for a moment as Amrita assumed he was listening to a response. "Copy that."

Amrita sighed, not liking being out of the loop on what was going on, but resigning herself to the fact that she would just have to wait to find out what was happening, if they would even end up telling her in the end. She leaned her elbow on the glassless window frame of the Jeep, placing her chin in her hand and staring out at the graffiti on the building they were parked behind. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, she was jerking her head up from where it had fallen back against the seat, startled awake by the motion of the Jeep. She tried not to get her hopes up, but she hoped they were actually going to be finishing whatever mission they were on and going back to headquarters so she could either get some real sleep or some real answers, though seeing as it had turned into nighttime since she'd last looked at the sky, she felt she would prefer sleep over anything else at the moment.

They rolled to a stop in front of a small, secluded house not terribly unlike her own a couple of minutes later, and Amrita squinted out into the dark, just able to make out the dark figures of what looked like Natasha and an unfamiliar man. The man slid into the Jeep first, and Amrita fought the urge to squash herself up against the upholstery in order to put a little extra distance between herself and the stranger. She wasn't exactly the most trusting of strange men. She had been taken advantage of more than once in the past, and despite that it became more and more likely to happen the longer she lived, that didn't make it any more acceptable, or any less scarring.

The man looked over at her as Natasha climbed into the Jeep behind him, seeming to notice her discomfort, though whether he realized it was because of him, she couldn't be sure. Either way, he smiled faintly, holding out his hand to her.

"Hi. I'm Bruce," he said.

Amrita hesitated for a fraction of a second, but hastily shook his hand before dropping it, not wanting him to feel awkward despite that she was unsure of whether he was to be trusted just yet.

"Amrita," she muttered.

Bruce looked at her thoughtfully. It seemed innocent enough, but she still didn't like it.

"You wouldn't happen to be the Amrita that lives in the village a couple hours away, would you?"

She deflated a little at that. Of course, even someone who didn't look to be native to India had heard of the rumors the locals spread about her 'spooky' supernatural healing powers. The locals thought she was bad luck to those who crossed her doorstep because the healing she did defied the laws of nature, and they spread their thoughts to anyone who would listen.

"Yes, I'm _that_ Amrita," she said tiredly, turning back to the window and leaning her head against the frame.

Bruce muttered something along the lines of "that explains it, then", but Amrita was no longer listening, already feeling herself being lulled to sleep as the Jeep adopted a steady speed towards wherever their destination might be.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Bwahahaha! ALL of the follows! Haha, j/k. But seriously, thank you to all of you who followed/favorited the story already! I hope you all continue to like it.

New chapter time! :D

(Oh and by the way, I don't own Avengers. Obviously.)

* * *

**chapter two:**

"Amrita… Wake up. We're here."

Amrita frowned as she was pulled out of her pleasant dream by a masculine voice. She couldn't place where she had heard that voice before, but she knew it wasn't completely unknown to her. She mumbled "five more minutes", her head feeling fuzzy with the remnants of sleep. The owner of the voice chuckled, and she frowned at their cheeriness when she had just been rudely awakened from her sleep. She never woke up to anything but her body's internal alarm clock, and it threw her off to be awoken by someone else. She cracked her eyes open, finding that it was already light out. She was met with the sight of gray material, which she quickly realized was a suit jacket.

Amrita jerked away from the wearer reflexively, not knowing who it was she had fallen asleep on, her mind reeling at the circumstances that might have caused her to wake up in such a compromising position. She didn't get far before a tug made her realize she was strapped in by a seatbelt, and she was forced to pause and look at who it was she had fallen asleep on. The man that she vaguely remembered being stuck in a vehicle with the night before greeted her sight, and he was looking at her curiously and almost regretfully. She quickly averted her eyes to the rest of her surroundings, still feeling agitated and uncomfortable with her proximity to the unfamiliar man. When she realized they were in a plane that was just rolling to a stop on a runway, she quickly unstrapped her seatbelt and moved towards the door, jumping out onto the tarmac despite Natasha's call for her to stay in the plane until it had come to a complete stop. She jogged a few feet away from the plane before stopping, placing her hands on her knees and taking a few deep, calming breaths. She slowly became aware of the fact that there were a number of agents bustling about what looked like a floating military base, and a few of them were looking at her oddly as she stood there, focusing on steadying her breathing.

Natasha came jogging up to her, a faint look of concern on her face, though Amrita couldn't tell for sure whether or not it was genuine. It was nice to think that the stoic woman might care for her well-being, even if it was only because of her job. It had been a while since anyone had truly cared about Amrita as a person. It was almost a foreign concept to her current self.

"What was that back there?" the female agent asked. "I wasn't aware you knew of Dr. Banner's past."

Amrita was confused by the woman's statement. "Huh?" she asked dumbly. "Um. It's, uh…well it's more to do with my own past than anything," she said, shifting her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Let's just say…not exactly a good history with men, if you know what I mean. It's nothing to do with him personally, I'm just…not comfortable with strangers."

A light of understanding appeared in Natasha's eyes, and she nodded.

"I wasn't aware. If I had been, I wouldn't have stuck you next to him like that."

Amrita shrugged it off, not quite sure how to deal with the stoic agent. She felt like the years of solitude in India had made her socially awkward, with how few interactions she had with people, most of them having ended rather negatively.

"Either way," Amrita said, clearing her throat; something she often did when she was uncomfortable. "I'd, uh…like to talk to whoever's in charge, if I could."

Natasha nodded. "Of course. He'll be wanting to speak with you now anyway." She glanced over at a plane coming down on the runway and pursed her lips before looking back at Amrita. "I would take you myself, but I need to speak to another new arrival. I'll get another—_female_—agent to take you to Fury," she said, motioning another agent over and instructing her on where to take the other woman.

Amrita studied the new agent, feeling a little awkward at being escorted everywhere. She was so unused to socializing that the thought of being in such a highly-populated place made her palms sweaty with anxiety. She quickly wiped her hands on her sari, trying to make it look like she was just smoothing wrinkles out of her skirt but unsure if it looked anything less than totally awkward to anyone else. The new female agent gave her a quick smile before asking her to follow her. Amrita studied the back of her head and noted the harsh bun the agent's blond hair was pulled back into, not a single hair out of place. It was very no-nonsense-professional looking.

"I'm Amrita, by the way," Amrita blurted out, feeling color rush to her cheeks when the agent glanced back at her oddly. "Uh. What's your name?" she asked, pushing on despite her discomfort. She decided that at least talking felt less uncomfortable than the awkward silence between her and the agent that felt like it was smothering her.

The agent tipped her head towards Amrita in acknowledgment of her question.

"Agent Vale," she said, not slowing her brisk pace down the cool metal hallway as she talked. "I was part of the detail that transported you here."

Amrita nodded, vaguely remembering now that one of the people in the front of the Jeep she had ridden in had been a female with blond hair. Honestly, since neither of the agents in the front seat had spoken to her, she hadn't really taken the time to study them. She vowed to take more notice of the people she encountered in the future.

"Nice to meet you," Amrita said lamely. She wasn't sure if it was really appropriate to trade niceties with a government agent like her; wasn't sure if the woman would appreciate it or not. Then again, she wasn't sure of much when it came to interacting with other people. The only memories she had of being sociable seemed fuzzy and hard to access, as though she were watching them underwater, the sound muted.

Agent Vale just nodded her head, flashing her another one of those quick smiles that was gone as quickly as it had appeared without ever reaching her eyes. Amrita took that as a sign that she should shut her trap and wisely did so, pressing her lips together when the urge to break the silence came again. Not a moment too soon, they reached a large room full of people and technology, some of it vaguely familiar to Amrita, while most of it was completely foreign to her. A dark-skinned man with an eyepatch and trench coat spotted the two of them and crossed the room to meet them.

"Amrita Mehrotra," he said, all business.

She fought the urge to take a step back, finding his presence intimidating. Somehow, she thought he would find it a sign of weakness if she shied away from him, so she forced herself to stand straight, shoulders squared to face him despite the fact that she could feel her fingers trembling slightly. The fact that she was in a room full of unfamiliar people did nothing to calm her nerves, but she took solace in the fact that at least she wasn't the only woman in the room. She couldn't bring herself to quite meet the tall black man's piercing gaze though for fear it would undo her carefully complacent expression, instead opting to stare determinedly at the tip of his nose as he spoke.

"My name's Nick Fury. I take it you know why you were brought here?"

Amrita chewed the inside of her cheek before replying, "I have a vague idea."

If Amrita hadn't been staring determinedly at the tip of his nose, she wouldn't have noticed the way his lips twitched ever so slightly, making her wonder if he was forcing himself not to smile. Or frown. It could've been either one, really. When she thought about it, it was really more likely the latter.

"Agent Romanov didn't brief you on the plane here?"

Amrita could feel her cheeks heat up with an embarrassed blush. "I, uh. Slept the whole way here, sir," she muttered.

Fury exhaled heavily, his shoulders heaving with the action.

"Alright then. We'll brief you before we get everyone else in the meeting room. Agent Vale, if you could grab Mehrotra's file, we'll meet you there."

Vale gave a "yes, sir" and swept off, leaving Amrita to stumble after Fury as he strode out of the tech room and down another unfamiliar hallways with strides so long she just about had to jog to keep up. Fury stopped at a door before too long and pushed it open, holding it open for Amrita, who awkwardly walked past him before he closed the door behind them. She found herself chewing on the inside of her cheek again, uncomfortable in her current situation. She quickly moved to the other side of the table that was set in the middle of the room and sat down at the chair that was set the furthest away from any of the others. She caught Fury's eyebrow quirking up a bit, but it moved back to its normal place and he didn't show any other facial expression after that. He sat at the head of the table and folded his hands on the table in front of him, leaning in towards her. Amrita fought the urge to lean back away from him, instead grabbing onto the hammered silver charm bracelet on her left wrist and playing with the charms, letting the memories that were associated with it strengthen her resolve as she remembered the person she had been when she first received the precious gift.

"So. Amrita Mehrotra," Fury said, fixing her with a steely one-eyed stare. "Mind if I just call you Rita?"

Amrita blinked. It had been a long time since someone had given her a nickname. A nice nickname, anyways.

"Um. Sure, I guess."

Fury nodded. "Rita, then." He gestured to her. "I have an offer for you, but there's some things I want to clear with you before I make it. Just some things about your background that I'd like a little clarification on." He paused as the door opened behind him, holding out his hand and accepting the folder that Agent Vale placed in his upturned palm. "Thank you, Agent Vale. Just wait outside, for now." The agent wordlessly retreated, and he took a deep breath, checking inside the folder for a moment before tossing it on the table in front of Amrita. "I think you might find the contents of that folder quite interesting."

Amrita hesitated before flipping the folder open, jerking her hands away when the picture that stared back at her was the same sight she had witnessed in her nightmares for the past five months. She glared at Fury despite the feeling of moisture gathering in her eyes, threatening to fall.

"What's the meaning of this?" she hissed, on edge now that they had presented her with evidence of what she was.

Fury leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers in front of his chin.

"Five months ago, there was an incident in the Indian village near where you lived. A middle-aged man was burnt to a crisp in a back alley." He quirked an accusing eyebrow at her. "Funny thing is, when the local authorities tried to determine the starting point of the fire, they found that it had started from _inside_ the man's body." His expression was blank as he added, "His testicles, to be exact."

Amrita gave a derisive snort. It was both amusing and sickening to hear what she'd done from the stoic man's mouth.

He gave her a disapproving look before continuing.

"Naturally, SHIELD was interested when they found out the fire was possibly due to supernatural causes. So we looked into it, and our agents heard your name dropped by some of the people that had been nearby when the body was discovered. Something about the fact that there had been a young woman named Amrita living in the same hut for several generations, but she didn't always have the same face." He gestured to her. "Another interesting thing: Apparently, this woman could heal any illness that was brought to her. If you'd turn to the next few photos, I think you'll find them easier on the eyes than the first one," he said, nodding at the file.

Amrita, feeling oddly numb to the fact that her abilities had been thrown in her face, did as he requested, spreading out the other photos on the table in front of her. There were three photos in succession showing her mending a wound just by touching it, her eyes and fingertips glowing an eerie yellow. Then there were two pictures of her sitting in front of her fireplace, her eyes glowing orange before flames leapt spontaneously to life in the hearth. The last was an aged photograph of herself with the man who had given her the charm bracelet she still wore, though it was not exactly the current her, per say. Her hair and eye colors were the same as they were now, but other than that, she looked a completely different person. She had darker skin, slanted eyes, a smaller mouth and a heart-shaped face; as opposed to her current fair skin, almond-shaped eyes, full lips and oblong face shape. She smiled fondly at the picture, as it was one taken not long after she and her past lover had married in the 1950s. Due to her nature, unfortunately he was taken from her too soon, but he had been wholly accepting of her despite everything, and she looked back on their time together fondly. She fingered the charm bracelet once again, the smile falling from her face as she remembered when he had passed just a few years earlier.

"I take it you have an explanation for how you can take your own life and just end up coming back with a different face," Fury said, jerking Amrita out of her musing. She gave a wry smile.

"I have an explanation. It might not be one you'd like to accept, though."

Fury raised an unamused eyebrow.

"Try me."

Amrita exhaled loudly, slumping back a bit in her seat, her previously tense muscles relaxing a little as she began to realize this man was not an immediate threat to her. She chewed on the inside of her cheek a moment, trying to find the right words to explain her existence to a human who, despite being part of a top-secret government agency, she doubted knew much, if anything, about her or her kin.

"Have you ever heard the legend of the phoenix, Mr. Fury?"

"It's Director Fury," the man dead-panned. "And yes, I have."

Amrita gave a tentative smile. "Apologies. Director Fury." She inclined her head towards him. "That might make my explanation a bit easier, then. You see, I have walked this earth since the civilizations of humans were just beginning to explore the far reaches of the globe. Since before the Roman empire had conquered much of anything," she stated plainly. Whether Fury believed it or not was up to him. There had been a few occasions in past lives when she had explained this very thing, but those times were hazy memories at best. "I have had many faces before, but always the same name. It is…comforting to have one thing stay the same when I, myself, am constantly changing, whether I want to or not." She frowned. "I am like the legendary phoenix, Director Fury. I can die, but I will resurrect as a new person, with a new face. I will have memories from my past lives, but they are blurry, like a photo taken while moving, and they grow more so the more times I resurrect. For example, I can remember that I have been here since the Roman empire was but a fledgling, but I could not tell you hardly anything that I did in that lifetime."

Fury was silent for a long, drawn-out moment, staring at her, his one eye searching her face as though trying to discern whether she were lying or not. After a while, he took a deep breath and sat up straight in his seat once more.

"In that case, Rita, I'd like to make you an offer," he said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. "I'd like you to become part of our staff. A medic, for a…special team of individuals I'm trying to put together."

Amrita was silent for a moment. She'd had a couple brushes with secret government agencies in her last life, but they had been brief and thankfully she had been able to disappear once they were no longer in need of her assistance. This seemed like it was going to be different, though. Different in a potentially-complicated kind of way. Amrita was a simple person. She didn't like 'complicated'.

"I need you to tell me one thing first, Director," she said, and at his nod, she continued. "If you're asking me to do this…is it because the world is in danger?"

The Director's lips pressed into a thin line. He was silent for a moment, as though reluctant to answer, but he did nonetheless.

"…Yes."

She nodded. "That's all I need to know," she said.

"I'm in."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Wow...thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited so far, and to _Xxx (Guest),_ _gammawidow67, _and _DanathaKettu_ for the reviews! Hope you all enjoy this next installment! (There's more Bruce in this one. ;) )

Again, I don't own, nor am I affiliated with Marvel/The Avengers... surprise!

* * *

**chapter three:**

Amrita could not sleep that night. Her sleep pattern had been thrown extraordinarily out of whack by the flight and subsequent sleep in the plane. She had slept quite deeply, unaware of the fact that she was sleeping on the shoulder of an unfamiliar man. The thought disturbed her. Anything could have happened while she was asleep, and she would have feared the worst had there not been female agents on board the plane. Nevertheless, she was left pacing the floor of the plain room she had been assigned. Thankfully it was in one of the least populated areas of the helicarrier—she assumed Fury had noted her aversion to men and arranged her room not to be too close to any—so at least she didn't have to worry about potentially keeping people in the rooms next door up all night with her. When it was almost four in the morning, she felt her empty stomach growl, and she decided to see if she could remember where the cafeteria was from the very rushed tour she had been given and see if she could scrounge up a muffin and perhaps some chamomile tea to help her get some rest before she had to be at her clinic at eight, as per Fury's request. He had given her some newfangled technology he'd called a 'pager' that she'd never seen before and said that if there was an emergency that required her presence, it would beep and let her know. (She still had no idea how it worked, but she figured as long as she didn't press anything, she couldn't possibly break it. She had clipped it gingerly to the neckline of her sari and had resolved not to touch it since.)

Amrita stepped gingerly out of her room, looking both ways down the hall and trying to remember which way they had come from when Agent Vale had brought her to her past the cafeteria to her room. She glanced down at what she was wearing before she headed out, figuring that the plain white sleep shirt with a black sweater zipped up over it and black capris was fine to venture out in. She felt a bit weird wearing pants, since she usually wore saris, or on occasion western-styled sundresses, but it seemed an acceptable thing to wear. At least it wasn't completely skin-tight as a lot of the agents' bodysuits seemed to be. She frowned at the thought. It seemed almost indecent in her mind. Shaking her head to try and focus on finding the cafeteria, she randomly picked a direction when she couldn't recall which way they'd come and headed down the hall. She remembered there had been a right and then immediately a left turn, so she did the opposite of that at what seemed to her the right hallways. After a few minutes of walking, however, she quickly deflated when she realized she was, indeed, lost.

Sighing, she resigned herself to having to ask directions from the first person she saw. Surely in order to keep this contraption up and running in the air, there had to be at least a few people working around the clock to maintain the computers and whatnot controlling it, right?

After a few more minutes of walking, she was beginning to think she might be walking all night until morning came up, but then she began to recognize a few rooms. She had just stopped outside the door to her clinic when she realized there was someone working in the room next door, which had large glass windows set into the wall so that people could look in and see what was happening. She almost groaned in frustration when she realized who it was that was working in there. She had promised herself that she would ask the first person she saw for directions, though, and who knew how long it might be before she found someone else to ask? Sighing in defeat, Amrita stepped up to the glass and gave three sharp raps in quick succession.

The man inside jerked his head up from the equipment he was working with, and he looked genuinely surprised and confused to see her outside of his workspace. Whether that was due to the late hour, or how badly she had reacted to his presence on the plane, she couldn't be sure. Maybe a little bit of both. She was hit with a wave of guilt over her reaction. When she thought about it, he had seemed perfectly polite when they had first met. It was just her nerves getting the better of her. Perhaps she should apologize, she thought.

The curly brown-haired scientist left his station, opening the lab door next to the window. Amrita took an involuntary step back, uncomfortable with being too close to the man despite that he seemed a gentleman from what she had seen of him. Unfortunately, he seemed to notice her moving back, and she noticed a flicker of emotion cross his face before he schooled his expression once more.

"It's pretty late for people to be wandering around, let alone to a science lab," he said softly, as though if he spoke any louder he might scare her off. "You must be lost, I take it."

Amrita looked sheepish. "Um. Yeah, actually." She scratched the back of her neck, avoiding the man's gaze. "Uh…sorry, I know we met, but I forget your name."

When she risked a glance upwards, she was confused to see the surprise on the man's face. Almost as though he had expected her to know him, for some reason. She frowned at that thought. She hadn't even gone further than the village she lived outside of in the few years since she'd resurrected, how was she supposed to know anyone from the world outside of that?

"Bruce," he said after a moment of stunned silence. "Bruce Banner."

Amrita gave a breathy laugh, her nervousness pushing her to humor.

"Well, Bruce-Bruce Banner, I was wondering if you might point me in the direction of the cafeteria."

Bruce chuckled. "Just Bruce is fine. And if you give me a second, I'll come with you," he said, stepping back into the lab for a moment and hanging up his lab coat. "It'd be easier that way, seeing as it's on the exact opposite side of this flying tin can."

Amrita raised an eyebrow, falling into step beside Bruce as he walked, but keeping a fair bit of distance between them.

"I take it you're not a big fan of flying, then," she said.

"Well, the fact that we're 30,000 feet in the air should anything suddenly go wrong isn't exactly the most comforting of thoughts," he muttered, "So no, I'd say I'm not a fan."

Amrita hummed. "Personally, I like flying. It's the machinery I don't trust. I'd just as well do without."

"Flying without machinery?" Bruce said, raising an eyebrow at her. "What, you mean like in a hot air balloon?"

Amrita frowned, wracking her brain for her own meaning. She could remember that she had flown without machinery before, but as she sifted through the memories that weren't blurred past recognition, she could not find when she had done so.

"I…don't recall," she said. "I just know I've flown before. I don't recall the means…"

Bruce gave her an odd look, but let the discussion drop. There was a lull in the conversation as they both became wrapped up in their own thoughts, until Bruce seemed to perk up a bit and turned a hallway before stopping at a set of double doors.

"This is it," he said, pushing open the door and holding it for her.

Nervously, she brushed past him before skittering to put distance between them once again. She looked around the cafeteria, noting how vast the room was. There must have been enough tables to seat over a thousand people, she thought in awe. She saw that there was only one staff in sight, who nodded a greeting to the two of them and started making a fresh pot of coffee. Amrita wandered over to the display cooler that held a variety of different sandwiches, salads, and fruits, and she perked up at the sight of sliced mango, her mouth watering as she grabbed it and moved over to the counter, shyly engaging the woman who was wiping down the kitchen counters.

"Um…excuse me, how much does this cost?" she asked, hoping it didn't cost too much. She belatedly wondered if they would accept the rupees that she had, as she hadn't had a chance to exchange them for anything else.

The woman waved off her question.

"No worries, it'll just be deducted from your paycheck," she said. "Help yourself to some coffee, while you're at it."

"Oh!" Amrita exclaimed, relieved that there was one less hassle to overcome while on the helicarrier. Fury hadn't told her she would be compensated for her work. She'd rarely been compensated when she'd healed people in the village in India. "Thank you very much," she said gratefully, pouring herself a cup of the steaming liquid and pouring some cream and sugar into it. She had never quite adjusted to the bitterness of coffee; she was more a lover of sweets.

Amrita turned, carefully watching her coffee to make sure she didn't spill it and sitting down at the nearest table to partake in her snack. She took a careful sip of the steaming coffee, making sure the creamer had cooled and dulled the bitterness enough for her tastebuds, and finding it sufficient, grabbed a piece of fruit. She was just about to pop it in her mouth when Bruce sat himself down across the table from her, placing a cup of coffee down in front of him.

"Oh," she said awkwardly. "You don't have to stay with me if you don't want…I think I could find my way back from here. I can ask the kitchen staff if I need directions," she said, trying to excuse him from her presence. Not that he didn't seem like a nice enough person, but her aversion to men made her reluctant to spend more time with him than necessary, now that she had achieved her goal.

Bruce gave her a tired smile, and it was only then she realized the dark circles under his eyes. She hadn't thought that he had been pulling an all-nighter in the lab, thinking that maybe he had just gotten up super early to get a head start on the day. However, that didn't seem to be the case.

"That's okay," he said. "I could use the pick-me-up, and to be honest, I kind of wanted to ask you something."

Amrita braced for accusations about her rude behavior. She didn't feel like explaining her background, not to a stranger. A male stranger, at that.

"When you reacted badly to me on the trip here, I figured that it was just because you knew about my past, but…Fury mentioned something that made me think it was more than that," he said, folding his hands around the hot cup in front of him, leaning forward a bit over the table. Amrita instinctually leaned back to compensate for the closing of distance between them. Bruce frowned.

"Someone took advantage of you, didn't they?"

Amrita clutched at the edges of the table. She could feel her shoulders trembling, but she refused to let herself cry in front of a stranger. She ducked her head, staring resolutely at her lap. How dare he ask something so bluntly? Had he no manners? No discretion? You didn't just ask people you hardly knew if they'd been molested, no matter how isolated the conversation was.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out that way," Bruce said with a sigh. "I don't know how else to put it, though, without beating around the bush." She didn't look up, and Bruce sighed again. "Look, I just…want to know how I'm supposed to act around you. Your clinic is right next to my lab, so we're bound to cross paths at some point, and I just don't want to make you feel more uncomfortable around me than you already do, alright?"

Amrita frowned. It wasn't any of his business, but…he made a valid point. She swallowed thickly.

"Yes," she finally croaked. "I was."

It felt so strange, admitting that to someone she'd just met. But in a way, it almost felt…liberating. She had never told anyone outright before what had happened. Was this what telling people her closest-kept secret felt? She had thought it would feel shameful, letting others know what had happened; not this feeling as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was…freeing.

"A man tried to rape me," she said bluntly, finally raising her eyes to meet Bruce's. "I ended up killing him."

Bruce had an odd look on his face. Sympathy, perhaps? It was something that was foreign to Amrita.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said. He pursed his lips. "So that's why you're so…jumpy? It's not just me?"

Amrita shook her head vehemently.

"Heavens, no! I'm sorry if you got that idea, but no. I just…am not comfortable around men, that's all."

"Ah." He nodded. "Good to know," he said, but she couldn't help but think he looked a little worried about something.

Amrita studied Bruce as he blew on his black coffee before taking a tentative sip, the corners of his eyes scrunching a bit at the heat of it. He seemed like a very understanding person. When she analyzed her feelings in regards to conversing with him like this, with only one other person within shouting distance, she felt that she didn't feel nearly as panicked as she usually would. Whether that was because of his response to the truth of her past, or merely because he had a calming presence, she wasn't entirely sure. All she knew was, she didn't feel near as uncomfortable with him as she usually would with other men. She smiled, and when Bruce looked up to see it, he raised his eyebrows at her.

"What's with the smile?" he said. "Did I get coffee on my chin?" He scrubbed at his chin with the edge of his shirt sleeve.

She laughed. "No. It's just…you're a very understanding person, Bruce," she said. "I think I could be friends with you."

Bruce frowned. "I'm actually not so sure that's a good idea," he said.

Amrita tilted her head to the side, confused. "Why not?"

Bruce shook his head, running a hand through his already messy hair.

"It's just…I've got a not-so-good past of my own, and I wouldn't want to drag you into it." He smiled wryly. "It's not your problem, and I don't want to make it yours."

Amrita took a deep breath, wondering if it were possible to transfer decades of experience and knowledge to the man within the space of a few sentences. She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully.

"Bruce…I'm not sure how many friends you have, if any. I, myself, have none to speak of at present," she said. "But I have had many in the past, and if there's one thing that I've learned, it's that people need companionship. And part of being friends with people is the understanding that each person has their own past, however messy that may be, and that if troubles arise from that past, their friends will support them." She went back over the words in her mind, and nodded, feeling she'd explained her stance on the subject well enough. "Sometimes people just need someone else to be there for them. I don't know about you, but I could use a few friends around here. I'm not exactly happy with my services being enlisted by a secret government agency that know way more about me than they should."

Bruce's gaze dropped to his cup of coffee, and he was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke.

"Alright," he said softly. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

Amrita smiled brilliantly. He may have been a man, but he seemed like a good man, and she hoped that with his understanding, she would be able to gradually overcome her fear of men so that simply standing close to one would not cause her to react badly. She wondered at his reluctance to accept her friendship, and was reminded of how he, too, had been living in a less-populated area of India when SHIELD had picked him up. Her stomach growled before she could ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue, though, and she felt her cheeks grow warm as Bruce chuckled at her.

"I take it you're hungry, then," he said.

Amrita grimaced and nodded, eating a bite of her mango before speaking.

"Yes. That's why I wanted to find the cafeteria…I couldn't sleep, and then my stomach started complaining for me to feed it."

Bruce nodded, sipping at his coffee while Amrita tried not to look like a pig while scarfing down her snack. They sat in silence for the rest of the time, while Amrita finished eating and they both sipped at their coffees until they were gone. It was with a quick glance at the clock above the display cooler that Amrita realized with shock that it was past five in the morning already. She needed to perform her morning ritual before she had to head down to her clinic at eight. She turned to Bruce, feeling a little sheepish.

"Um…Bruce, I don't suppose…you'd be able to help me find my way back to my room?" she asked timidly, ducking her head as she felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment at her inability to remember directions.

Bruce just laughed. "Of course, do you have the number?"

Amrita dug in her pocket for the slip of paper that she'd deigned to keep on her person just in case something like this happened. She slid it across the table towards him, and he picked it up after she'd withdrawn her hand, something she was grateful he'd thought to wait for. He looked at the number, then pulled out an electronic device and typed something in on it, nodding after a second.

"Yeah, I know where it is," he said.

Amrita's shoulders slumped in relief. "Thank heavens! I don't know how long I would've ended up wandering around this place trying to find it by myself..."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Thank you to everyone who took the time to review! :) And also for all of the follows/favorites. Hope you all continue to enjoy the story.

Blah blah blah. No own Marvel/Avengers.

On with ze show!

* * *

**chapter four:**

Amrita sat in the middle of the floor of her relatively small room, all of the minimal furniture having been pushed to the far reaches of the room to make way for her morning routine. She sat with her legs in a pretzel-reminiscent pose, her back perfectly straight as she closed her eyes, focusing on slowing and steadying her breathing. Once she had done that, she unfurled herself slowly to stand on her feet, beginning her morning yoga routine: the sun salute. She moved with a practiced ease through the different stretches, something that she had done every morning since she had begun to practice yoga in her past life. The routine was something that she had carried over with her to her new life, another constant that she wished to keep despite how much she had changed in her resurrection. The only sound was her deep, steady breathing and the occasional quiet chiming of her silver charm bracelet as she moved.

As she completed her sixth repetition of the sun salute, she sank down to the floor once more, laying herself down in a dead man's pose and focusing on feeling each part of her body, ignoring the pull of tiredness as it began to sink in. She supposed she'd need another cup of coffee if she were to make it through the day without falling asleep on the job.

Slowly, Amrita pulled herself back to alertness and blinked her eyes open before rolling up into a sitting position again, looking around her room and noting the suitcase of a few or her belongings that Natasha had brought with them from her house when they'd left. She sighed, not really feeling prepared for whatever the day might bring due to her tiredness, but supposed she would just have to tough it out. Hauling herself to her feet, she grabbed the suitcase and lugged it into the postage-stamp sized bathroom with her before opening it. She took out her toothbrush and toothpaste, placing them beside the sink along with her comb and ponytail holder before sorting through the four sets of clothing that had been packed in the suitcase, along with undergarments: One formal sari, one plain sari, one somewhat fancy _salwar kameez_, and a casual _kurta_ and _churidar_ pants. She frowned, realizing she would need more plain-but-professional clothing to work in. Perhaps she would ask Natasha or Agent Vale where she could procure some. She tossed on fresh undergarments before putting on the plain, beige-colored sari with red edging, slipping on a pair of sandals and diving into her hygiene routine to make herself presentable despite her lack of sleep. It was a shame she didn't have any makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes, she thought. She had to settle for just splashing cold water on her face to try and make herself more alert. She had a feeling she'd be doing that more than once during the day.

Thanks to the handy directions Bruce had been kind enough to scrawl on a scrap of paper he'd had on him, she managed to find her way to the cafeteria and grab a coffee before she headed to her clinic without having to ask anyone for directions. Not that that would have been quite as big a problem as it had been last time she'd gotten lost, as now that it was just past seven o'clock in the morning, the residents of the helicarrier seemed to be all waking up, ready to start the day. Too bad she just felt like crawling into bed.

_Today is going to be absolute torture,_ she thought somberly as she entered her clinic, downing a large gulp of her coffee and nearly burning her tongue. She grimaced, setting the to-go cup down and vowing to let it cool a bit more before she made her morning any worse than it had to be. She glanced around the room and spotted a crisply-ironed white lab coat laid out on the examination table for her. She chewed the inside of her cheek, déjà vu washing over her as she grabbed it and put it on. It had been a long time, objectively speaking, since she'd worn one of these.

Amrita had just finished taking a quick inventory on the placement of all the supplies in the clinic by eight o'clock, when Director Fury walked in promptly as the clock struck the hour.

"Doctor," he said by way of greeting. She started, unaware that he had dredged up her credentials from her past life. She supposed that SHIELD must have known more than they'd shown her in her file, as they'd addressed the fact that they knew she'd changed her face before. She was a bit miffed that they knew so much. It would make disappearing once this whole earth-in-danger fiasco was over all that much harder.

"Couldn't sleep last night?"

Amrita raised an eyebrow, wondering how he knew, but then spotted slight movement in the shadowed top corner of the room, realizing there must be cameras everywhere on the helicarrier for security reasons. Unfortunately, the thought failed to make her feel any safer.

"No, sir," she said. "Also, in regards to my 'escapades' last night, I believe it would do me well if I could have a map with all the important rooms of the helicarrier marked on it."

Fury nodded. "I'll have Agent Vale bring one down for you later," he said. "Have a nice day, doctor. I'll check in with you later to see how things are going."

Amrita nodded, eager for him to move along so she could reorganize things. There were some supplies that were in places that just didn't make sense to her, and she hated working in a space that wasn't properly organized to her liking. It had been the same last time she had worked as a fully licensed doctor.

Fury swept from the room with a _swoosh_ of his trench coat, which Amrita found somewhat amusing.

With that, her hectic day began.

The day started slow enough, but after nine o'clock, it seemed like there was a never-ending stream of minor injuries passing through her clinic. Joint dislocations, sprains, and scrapes from training that just needed to be taken note of for their employee files so that they could be kept track of. Apparently before she'd come on board, they just had a nurse to treat the injuries. The nurse was still on board, but she learned from one of her chattier patients that once the agents had heard there was a new doctor on board, they all wanted to check it out, so most of the agents that had injuries were coming to her instead to see what the new doctor was like. She rolled her eyes at that, hoping that they would find their curiosity sated sooner rather than later, seeing as this was not to be her 'official' role with SHIELD. She kept her lips shut about that, however, as Fury had mentioned to her after her recruitment that the team he had scoped her out for was not public knowledge, even on the helicarrier.

There were a couple of more 'interesting' injuries, though, one of them being a male agent with second-degree burns on his buttocks. Apparently his partner had literally lit a fire under his ass when he hadn't been training hard enough.

Amrita was never gladder to go get food than she was during her lunch break. She had posted a sign on her door for any injuries requiring immediate attention to go to the nurse, whose schedule Fury had provided for her so that they could stagger lunch breaks to maximize efficiency. Being sprung back into the role of doctor had been exhausting not only physically, but mentally. She had been forced to see male patients as well as female; health care did not cater to personal phobias of one gender or the other. She felt she had done well, as she had been able to assume a cool, detached demeanor in order to get through visits by male patients without letting on about her discomfort so that she could provide proper care, but adding that mental taxation on top of her sleepless night did not help her mental alertness. She felt like at that point, she might just need to fill an IV bag full of coffee and hook it up to her arm just to make it through the rest of the day.

Amrita was about halfway through her second cup of coffee during her lunch break before she remembered that Bruce hadn't slept last night, either. She hadn't seen him in the cafeteria when she'd come in, either, so she didn't know if he had even thought to come down for food yet. He struck her as the type of person who got so immersed in his work that he forgot to take care of himself. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she quickly made up her mind and grabbed a to-go cup of coffee and an apple before heading back a few minutes early, passing her clinic door to the glass wall of the lab next door and rapping on it just as she had in the wee hours of the morning. She got the same response, too; Bruce whipped his head up from the machine he'd been working away at and fixed his glasses that had slipped down the bridge of his nose. He spotted her and gave a slight smile, waving her in. She tucked the apple she was holding into her coat pocket so that she had one hand free to open the lab door. She shut it gently behind her, looking around at all the high-tech equipment all around and thanking the stars her clinic was not like that. It was likely because they knew the last time she'd been a doctor there had been very little technology to work with, but her clinic was virtually tech-free. It probably wasn't the same in the nurse's clinic, she thought as she crossed the room to where Bruce was sitting, typing away on a computer. She placed the coffee down on the table, pushing it towards him, making sure not to spill, and then placed the apple down beside it. She still didn't stand very close to him despite their tentative camaraderie.

Bruce glanced over and paused in his typing as he noticed the gifts she'd brought. He looked between them and her with a confused look on his face.

"What, what's this?" he asked, almost sounding amused.

Amrita shrugged, suddenly finding the air vent at the end of the room a very fascinating thing to study as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat.

"I wasn't sure if you had eaten yet," she said by way of explanation. "Plus I was aware that you hadn't slept last night, either, so I felt you could use the caffeine."

She glanced over just in time to catch Bruce's smile.

"Oh. Thanks," he said, sounding genuine. He reached for the coffee and took a sip, his smile growing. "That's one good thing about this place, I guess. They always keep the coffee fresh."

Amrita smiled before glancing at the clock by the door, realizing she only had one minute left of her lunch break.

"Sorry to dash, but my lunch break is over in less than sixty seconds, so…" she trailed off.

"No, no, that's okay," Bruce reassured her. "Thanks for bringing this for me. I haven't had a chance to grab something to eat yet, so I appreciate it."

Amrita raised a challenging eyebrow.

"If you expect us to be friends, you're going to have to take better care of yourself. I'd take it personally if you ended up in my clinic due to starvation. I'd think you were doing it to spite me," she joked with a straight face.

Bruce placed a hand over his heart. "I'm hurt you would think such a thing. Even if it were true, I would be a lot less obvious than that," he joked back.

She laughed and turned to leave, waving back at him over her shoulder as she returned to her clinic. She sighed as she entered the familiar room once again with eight seconds to spare, taking the sign off her door and placing it in an appropriate drawer to use again at a later date. It wasn't even five minutes before her next patient strode through her doors, and the afternoon became a steady stream of patients as well.

After the clock struck four, she found herself glancing at the clock much more than seemed healthy to her. She was antsy and ready to be out of there already, and she was surprised when fifteen minutes before her shift was over, Director Fury strode through the door, grabbing her sign from where she'd stashed it and placing it outside the door, drawing down the shade over the door's window. She was more miffed at the fact that he'd obviously been watching her on the security camera(s) than confused as to his presence there. After all, he _had_ said that he would check on her later. He turned back to her and nodded in greeting, not even giving her a verbal greeting.

_So good to see he's getting comfortable with me,_ she thought sarcastically.

"We're going to need you on standby tonight," he said without preamble.

She barely suppressed an audible groan, but she could feel her shoulders slump at the implication that she would not simply be able to go back to her room and go straight to sleep for the night.

"Oh?" she said wearily, not really caring why she needed to be on standby, just that _she had to be on standby_ and that _she did not want to be on standby_.

Fury raised an eyebrow at her depressed state. "Don't worry, you can fit in a couple hours sleep before we expect to need you. We'll page you once you're needed," he said, nodding to the pager clipped to the neckline of her sari. She'd almost forgotten about the thing because it hadn't notified her of diddly squat yet. She guessed that was because she'd been in her clinic all day, though.

"Let me clarify how this standby will work. Every other night, you and our resident nurse will switch responsibility for being on call. If it's a crisis, we'll page both of you, but other than that, you'll have every other night to yourself," he said, and Amrita brightened a bit at that, though not much, seeing as tonight was the one time she felt she really needed to sleep and she wouldn't be able to get more than a nap in before she'd be required back here. Fury noted the lack of enthusiasm in response to his statement and continued, "Tonight however, we need you specifically on call. Remember that team I wanted you to be part of?" he asked.

Amrita nodded wordlessly.

"This is team business. We're sending one of our operatives out. Minutes ago, Doctor Banner traced the location of an item we've been tracking. The item that's the reason the world is currently in peril," he explained, watching Amrita's eyes light up in understanding. "It's being wielded by a power-hungry god. I don't see us capturing him without a fight."

Amrita took in this news with a sense of grim acceptance. _So in other words, tonight might be really bad,_ she thought. And that would be why they needed her, specifically, on standby that night.

"In that case, Director," she said, "I would appreciate it if I could clock out a few minutes early… I believe I should get as much rest as possible before you need me." She glanced at the clock, which read four forty-nine. "Do you have an ETA for when they'll be back?"

Fury nodded. "If all goes well, they should be back by twenty-hundred hours," he said, his expression softening ever-so-slightly. Or perhaps it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. "Go get some rest, Rita."

"Thank you, sir," she said, with no small amount of relief, before shucking her lab coat, hanging it up and skittering off to her bed with an almost euphoric feeling.

Even three hours sleep would be better than what she was running on now.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Hey all! Bit of a longer chapter today. Hope y'all enjoy it! Thank you again to everyone who's reviewed, followed, and/or favorited this story. Cookies for all!

Me no own Marvel/Avengers. Me sad. Hulk smash! (Juuust kidding.)

* * *

**chapter five:**

It was altogether too soon when Amrita's pager went off unbearably loud next to her ear. Groaning, she drew it closer and read the message; "Come to clinic ASAP". She sighed. It certainly didn't leave any room for misinterpretation, anyway. She hastily changed from her sleep clothes into her _kurta_ and _churidar_, not wanting to slip back into her sari from earlier, which by now would be terribly wrinkled from the fact that she'd simply tossed it aside on the floor when she'd changed to go to sleep. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she popped a mint in her mouth, glad she'd thought to grab some at the cafeteria earlier for situations like this where she didn't have time to brush her teeth. With that, she clipped her pager to her pants and hurried down to the clinic, worrying about what sort of situation might be there to greet her.

When she got there, she was greeted by the sight of two men, one in a form-fitting, star-spangled outfit, and the other in plain clothes, though there was some sort of symbol glowing in the middle of his chest. He looked to be the more beat-up of the two, and was standing by the cabinets, examining their contents through the glass, while the other man was sitting in a chair at the end of the room. He stood when she entered the room, nodding at her respectfully.

"Evening, ma'am," he said.

She just about had a heart attack when she realized who it was.

Amrita schooled her expression before she could give anything away, keeping a cool, professional expression. She had met this man before, having worked with his unit in the army as a doctor. She had involved herself in the world wars when she realized how much was at stake, and had used her abilities when no human medical treatment would work. To see this man's face again was surprising, due to the fact that he should, by all human logic, be deceased given how long it had been since she'd met him. It was also unnerving, as if he came to recognize her for who she had been, he would start asking questions that she wasn't sure she was allowed to answer. So instead, she simply mumbled a greeting in response and put on her lab coat over her clothes.

"Which one of you requires treatment first?"

The man who was standing raised his hand, though he had a sour look on his face as he shot a sidelong glare at the other man.

Amrita nodded. "Alright, sit up on the table and take your shirt off," she said, turning to Captain America. "If you could just sit in one of the chairs out in the hall for a moment…?"

The Captain nodded, exiting wordlessly. The remaining man stared daggers at the man's back, waiting until he'd left before he hopped up on the examination table, starting to take his shirt off but pausing halfway.

"I do hope this isn't just an excuse to get me naked," he said straight-faced. "Because I have a girlfriend, and she doesn't like to share."

Amrita snorted.

"Don't worry, sir, I don't have any nefarious plans to take advantage of you in my clinic," she said sarcastically. "However, you do have to take off your shirt so I can see how bad the damage is. Director Fury wants me to do full physicals for both of you to make sure you're fit for duty."

The goateed man rolled his eyes, but finished taking his shirt off anyways.

"Fine. But I'm watching you," he said, making a 'watching you' gesture with two fingers.

"As you wish," she said, still using a sarcastic tone as she got out the paperwork to make notes on all of his bruises, the couple little cuts he had, and the fact that his lip was split. She carried on, shining a light in his eyes to make sure his pupils were reactive, then checking his vitals, then his reflexes, and had just started listening to his chest sounds when he started talking again.

"So, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he said. "Other than…doctor-y stuff, that is."

"Eating. Breathing. Sleeping," she said, annoyed that he was making noise when she was trying to listen to his breath sounds. "I'm going to have to ask you not to talk while I'm listening to your lungs, sir."

"Sir…sir…hmm, nope. Don't like it. Call me Tony," he said. "I mean, you could call me Mr. Stark, but that's a little too impersonal. I think if we're going to be getting all touchy-feely like this, we should at least be on a first-name basis." He grinned at her cheekily. "What's your name, sweet cheeks?"

Amrita resisted the urge to give an aggravated sigh, but couldn't keep the annoyed look off her face. She moved back, dropping her stethoscope and scribbling the last of the information needed down on her paperwork.

"Amrita," she said in a hostile tone. "And _don't_ call me sweet cheeks."

Tony had the gall to look wounded. "What? Are you insinuating that we don't know each other well enough for me to make up cute little nicknames for you? I just call them as I see them, I can't quite tell because of the lab coat but you look like you'd have a cute, perky little a—_aghhh!_"

Captain America came bursting through the door at the sound of Stark's girly shriek.

"What is it? What's the situation?!" he said frantically, only to notice Stark patting a small flame out of the seat of his pants, while the doctor just watched him flounder, her arms crossed and a 'serves-you-right' expression on her face. The star-spangled man raised his eyebrows, but said nothing further on the matter.

Amrita gave a stiff smile as Tony finally patted the flames out of his now scorched trousers.

"You're free to go now, _Tony_," she said in a sugar-coated tone. "I have all the information I need. You're clear for duty."

Tony gave her a death glare, but skittered out of the clinic before she could set fire to any other parts of his body, not trusting her with his well-being now that he'd seen her angry side.

Captain America glanced at the seemingly unspectacular woman in front of him with a small amount of nervousness. Doctors were supposed to heal, not harm their patients, right? But he had just seen her set fire to Stark's derriere not moments ago. Given, it _was_ Stark, so of course she would have had to put up with all his annoying antics, but still… The Captain shook his head, resolving to try and stay on this doctor's good side. He'd hate to end up in a situation like Stark had by being impolite.

"Well, that's one way to get him to shut up, I guess," he murmured.

To his surprise, the woman grinned at him in response.

"I should warn you now, Captain, I do not take lightly to inappropriate remarks from my patients. As I try to be professional during examinations, I expect my patients to return the favor," she said coolly. "Though I suspect, due to your reputation, I don't have anything to worry about from you." She motioned to the examination table. "Have a seat, please. And remove your shirt, if you would."

Steve complied, stripping off the top half of his uniform. Part of what she'd said caught his attention, though.

"My reputation…?" he asked curiously.

Amrita blinked up at him from where she was washing her hands prior to the examination, shutting off the taps with her elbow.

"Yes, you have a reputation for being quite the gentleman," she said. "It's all positive, I assure you."

Steve gave her a tentative smile.

"I guess if you know about my reputation, then you already know about me, but I'll introduce myself anyways," he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. "Steve Rogers, ma'am."

She gave him a smile. "Amrita Mehrotra. I would shake your hand, but…" she held up her freshly-washed hands.

"Oh," he said sheepishly, retracting his hand. "Sorry."

She chuckled. "That's alright. Let's get this over quickly so we can both retire for the night, shall we? I suspect from the fact that Fury said you had to fly out for your mission you might be a bit jet-lagged about now."

Steve nodded. The adrenaline from facing off with Loki, and then tussling with Thor and Tony, had kept him alert and even a bit antsy for the entire plane ride back, but now that Loki had been safely delivered to his cell, he could feel the fatigue setting in. It was a bit early yet to be turning in for the night, but he was an early riser, and he wouldn't mind going to bed an hour or two early, after he grabbed a shower and a bite to eat. Unfortunately, Fury would likely want them debriefed before he could even think about doing that…

Amrita went about the examination quickly, with practiced motions, and Steve couldn't help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu when he looked at the woman. He couldn't seem to place where he felt like he knew her from, but he felt like he did. Was he wrong? He was sure if he met anyone that looked like her, he would remember. She had almost an aura about her, one of mystery and untapped power. It was almost like the air around her was super-charged, just waiting for her to do something.

Then, when Amrita stared into his eyes before shining a pen light in them, he was struck by the reason he thought she was familiar.

It was those _eyes._

"You know, I remember someone I used to work with had the same eyes as you," he said.

She had a vague look of surprise, though she didn't seem to show much interest in his statement.

"Oh?" she asked.

Steve nodded as she turned to her paperwork and jotted some more notes down.

"Yeah. She was a doctor, like you," he said. "It was before…before the plane crash," he said, not really wanting to talk about that particular sore subject. "I think her name was Amy, if I remember correctly. Amy something-or-other. She had hair like yours, too, reddish-brown." Her silence made him feel like she wanted to switch topics, so he ended it awkwardly. "She was Asian, though."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

She took out her stethoscope and listened to his chest sounds, muttering a request for him not to talk and to take deep, steady breaths. They didn't talk again until after she'd started scribbling down the final notes on her paperwork.

"You're good to go," she said. "You're clear for duty."

Steve nodded, feeling a bit awkward with Amrita after the failed conversation from earlier.

"Thanks. It was nice meeting you, ma'am," he said.

"You too, Captain," she said without looking up from her paperwork.

The Captain lingered for a moment, unsure, but then left the clinic, aware that he still had to report to Fury about the mission and what they were to do now that they had Loki captive. He missed the way Amrita's fingers had been clenched painfully tight around her clipboard, white knuckles betraying her otherwise calm exterior.

* * *

Amrita was left reeling after the blast-from-the-past that was Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America. She was so glad she had adopted different names when she had helped out with the wartime efforts. Seeing as she had been working directly with government agencies during those times, she had deemed it necessary to protect her supernatural identity by masquerading under a different name so that she would be able to disappear without a trace once the world was no longer in danger, no longer in such desperate need of her talents.

Slumping down in her chair, she filed the medical paperwork for Tony and Steve in a locked cabinet, along with the basic health information sheets she had been given on them. It had been hard not to stare at Tony's arc reactor, and she would have done so had she not been informed about it beforehand. She heaved a great sigh, hoping that was all she'd been needed for, before heading out of the clinic, shutting the lights off and locking the door behind her. She took a couple steps in the direction of her room, but then paused, doubling back and peeking into the lab next door. She wasn't entirely surprised to see Bruce there, working still. She wondered if he'd even taken the time to have a cat nap yet. She decided she'd grab some drinks for both of them and pester him about his unusual sleep schedule.

It only took a couple minutes of her time to get something from the cafeteria. She had inquired the staff there about getting a couple to-go mugs of chai tea, and had been pleasantly surprised when the chipper kitchen lady had kindly put some together for her, with fresh spices and a fancy machine that apparently steamed milk for the tea rather than just using boiling water.

Amrita carefully tapped on the lab window when she returned, minding how full the to-go mugs both were with steaming hot tea. Despite that she would heal if she spilled on herself, as she had countless times before, it still was not a pleasant feeling.

Bruce looked up from his machine, grinning at her. He looked like he was going to motion her to come in, but then he seemed to realize both her hands were full and he got up from his work station, taking off his thin-rimmed glasses and tucking them in the pocket of his lab coat before opening the door for her to enter the lab.

"You know, I could get used to all these visits if you're going to bring me caffeine all the time," he joked.

Amrita chuckled. "I figured I'd check in and make sure you haven't passed out due to fatigue or malnutrition since the last time I saw you." She raised an eyebrow at him challengingly. "Did you get any sleep yet?"

Bruce shrugged, taking the mug of chai she placed on the table for him and making sure not to stand too close to her. "About an hour or so."

She gave him a disapproving look. He looked down at his feet.

"I dozed off while one of my algorithms was processing," he muttered.

"If I wasn't already so put off by how much human contact I've had today, I would smack you upside the head, Bruce Banner," she said with a tired glare.

Bruce grimaced.

"Oh, yeah. That can't have been fun." He shook his head. "How do you even put up with it? I'm sure you had plenty of male patients…"

Amrita exhaled heavily, sinking down into one of the chairs, tired of being on her feet so much. "It's not so difficult at the time. It just wears on me," she said. "Being a doctor, in a professional setting…it has a sort of power to it, understand?"

Bruce nodded. "I spent a few years at med school. Never finished though," he said. "That's what I was doing in India though, so I know what you mean."

Amrita looked at him, surprised and slightly impressed. "You're a very learned man, then," she commented. "But, yes. When I'm 'Doctor Mehrotra', I have a role that I'm to play. I'm no longer the woman who is afraid of men, but the doctor who is caring for her patient. It's like being an actor in a play, almost…I am able to make myself appear more confident, more professional, because it's a role that's familiar." She gave a small smile. "It's…reassuring that I can still do something like that despite what's happened. But it does get exhausting after a while."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "I'll bet," he said before taking a sip of his chai. His eyebrows nearly shot up into his hairline as he tasted it. "Wow. Where did you get this? I wasn't even aware they had chai on here."

Amrita grinned impishly, taking a sip of her own. She had to admit, the woman had done an excellent job of making it. She was almost on the same level as the chai artisans back in India. If there was one thing she wanted to compliment SHIELD on, it was the level of expertise of their kitchen staff.

"I just asked for it at the kitchen. Apparently they have some fancy machine for steaming milk, and the kitchen lady used fresh spices," she said, waggling her eyebrows at him. "It's like a taste of home."

"Home…?" he said, looking at her contemplatively. "Yeah, that's been something I've been meaning to ask you about… All those rumors about you back in India," he said. "I heard some of them, and I was just wondering…how much of them are true? I mean, obviously some of them must be, seeing as Fury wouldn't have had you brought back here if you weren't 'special'," he said, using air quotes and a flat tone.

Amrita studied him for a moment. Fury had never told her she could tell others on board about her abilities, but then again, he'd never expressly told her she _couldn't_ tell them, either… And after all, if she wanted to make an earnest attempt to be friends with Bruce, this sort of conversation would come up sooner or later anyway, would it not?

"Tell me what you heard, and I'll tell you which ones are true," she finally said. If he didn't already suspect it, who was she to speak of it? She almost felt like she was taking the easy way out, as she knew that there weren't rumors about every aspect of her abilities, but she didn't feel like giving him too much information all at once was really the wise thing to do, anyways. What if he took the information badly, or felt overwhelmed by it all? After all, even amongst mutants and super humans, most of her powers were practically unheard of.

"Well…there were rumors that you could heal anything. Like a superhuman healing ability," he said slowly.

Amrita lifted her mug. "True," she confirmed, taking a healthy sip.

Bruce nodded. "Okay, how about the one where you can kill people just by looking at them?"

She winced a bit, remembering the one time she had done just that. Bruce noticed, and started sputtering apologies, eyes wide. She held up a hand to stop him.

"Technically, yes, I could," she said, gesturing to herself. "Pyrokinetic," she said by way of explanation.

He nodded, hesitating before asking another question, seeming unwilling to upset her. "And the one where…you eat small children so you can live forever?"

Amrita just about spewed her mouthful of chai, choking it down and laughing loudly.

"_Seriously?_ They said that about me?" She shook her head. "Heavens, I knew those villagers were a bit superstitious, but not to _that_ extent…" She faked a somber expression. "I swear to you, Mr. Banner, I have not eaten any small children that I am aware of." She barely managed to finish her statement before she collapsed into giggles again. Bruce joined her, chuckling.

"Sorry. That was a pretty bad one," he said.

"No, no, it was good for a laugh at least," she waved off his apology.

They both went back to sipping their chai, each content with the silent solace of the other's company. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

Natasha stepped into the lab, straight-faced as ever.

"Doctors," she said with a nod to both of them. "The Director is just escorting Loki to his cell. We've been asked to monitor the surveillance in case anything happens."

Amrita raised her eyebrows, surprised that she was being asked to be a part of anything outside her doctoral duties. She glanced at Bruce, seeing he was surprised, too. Natasha motioned for them to follow her, and they crossed the hall to a large conference room that overlooked what looked like a large 'office' area, with several agents working away at computers. Natasha pulled up the surveillance footage of Loki's cell for them to watch. There were three other men already in the room—Tony, Steve, and a blond, well-muscled man she was unfamiliar with. No; man was not the right term. She could sense something unearthly about the male. An alien, perhaps? No, that didn't seem quite right, either…

Either way, she did not like the idea of being in a room full of mostly unfamiliar men. She gave an uncomfortable glance to Bruce, who looked a fair bit awkward himself. He gave her a wan smile and shrugged as if to say 'guess we're stuck', pulling out a seat for her away from where everyone else was sitting and pulling out the chair next to hers, but pulling it away a little. She gave him a grateful smile. All seemed to be going fine—until, that is, Tony caught sight of her.

"Oh, shit," he said, eyes wide. "Demon doctor!"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Hey all! If you've stuck around this far, thanks! Some... "interesting" things concerning Amrita's identity are hinted at in this chapter, but they won't actually be addressed for a little while yet. ;D So sorry, you'll have to stick around longer if you're curious! Heehehee. (I'm so evil.)

Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited, and especially to those who have reviewed! :)

I don't own the Avengers! 'Nuff said.

* * *

Amrita shot Tony an annoyed look at his outburst.

"I am not a demon doctor," she said curtly. "You're just a terrible patient who doesn't know when to keep his vulgar, unwanted comments to himself."

Steve chuckled from his seat across from Bruce. "Yeah, Tony. Maybe you should try not acting like yourself for once."

Tony glared at Steve. "Shut your mouth, twinkle toes. This doesn't concern you." He shifted his glare to Amrita. "You! You lit a fire…on my ass!"

Bruce spluttered into his chai, quickly grabbing a napkin to wipe the drink off his chin as he laughed. Steve grinned, and even Natasha couldn't help the momentary quirk of her lips before her expression became stony once again.

Amrita fixed Tony with a haughty look.

"That should teach you to behave next time you find yourself in a doctor's office. Next time you act the pervert in my clinic, I'll aim for someplace a little more…_sensitive_," she threatened.

Steve cleared his throat, as both he and Bruce made a point to look everywhere but at the female doctor. Tony's eyes widened in shock and horror.

"You wouldn't," he muttered.

Amrita raised a challenging eyebrow.

"Do you really feel brave enough to test that?" She purred. It felt nice to be the one in power. She didn't usually abuse that power, but with a man whose ego was as big as Tony Stark's was, it was quite satisfying to watch him squirm. She despised people who felt they had free reign to do as they pleased, be it due to social status or what.

"Alright, the surveillance footage is up," Natasha said, as she brought it up on a holographic projection at the other end of the table. Everyone turned to look at it, forgetting what they had just been talking about as they focused on the display. Tony took out a bag of seasoned peanuts and began munching away on them. Amrita hoped it meant he would be quiet for a few minutes.

Director Fury was currently trying to intimidate Loki by displaying how the cell he had been placed in worked. Amrita was alarmed that they would place someone in such a contraption, but her brow furrowed as she sensed the same sort of other-worldliness from their prisoner as she had from the muscled blond man. She glanced at said man briefly, noticing him watching the screen intently, almost worriedly. There must be a connection between the two of them, then. She averted her attention back to the screen as well.

Loki laughed at Fury's display.

"It's an impressive cage," he said, holding his hands out to his sides. Amrita did not like the smile he gave. It made her skin crawl. "Not built, I think, for me."

Fury gave no visible reaction to Loki's words.

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," he confirmed, threatening at the same time. Amrita was vaguely aware of Bruce standing up at this. She glanced at him briefly, but his back was to the screen, his shoulders slightly hunched as he crossed his arms in front of him. Amrita frowned, but turned back to the screen, resolving to ask Bruce about it later.

Loki's smile turned absolutely sinister.

"Oh, I've heard," he said, walking slowly about his cell with a confident swagger. He turned to stare directly into the lens of the surveillance camera. "A mindless beast, who makes play he's still a man." He turned his sneer on Fury. "How _desperate_ are you? That you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

Amrita was just about done with this conversation. She turned to Bruce, who was giving a small, tight smile as he bounced slightly on his heels, having turned back to watch the footage once more, one arm crossed tightly over his chest and the other rubbing at the muscles in his neck. She stared at him until she caught his eye, and gently patted the arm of the chair next to her. He gave a wan smile and shook his head. She huffed quietly, determinedly ignoring the fact that she drew the eyes of everyone else in the room as she stood up and strode over to stand about a foot and a half away from him, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her attention back to surveillance footage. Bruce chuckled beside her, but she refused to look over at him, or anyone else, for that matter. She especially made a note not to meet Tony's eye, as he was eyeing her and Bruce with an amused smirk on his annoying face.

Loki was just finishing mocking Fury, speaking about how he had let the Tesseract slip from his grasp.

"It burns you to have come so close," he murmured. "To have the Tesseract, to have power. _Unlimited_ power. And for what?" He gave that chilling grin again. "A warm light for all mankind to share?" His smile dropped, and he looked menacing. "And then to be reminded what _real_ power is."

Fury just stared him down for a moment before turning to leave, coat billowing behind him as he went.

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine, or something."

Amrita gave a snort of laughter.

Everyone looked at her.

"What?" she asked defensively. "Am I the only one with a sense of humor around here? _Heavens._"

Bruce just smiled and shook his head, nodding at the screen as Natasha took it down.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" He said sarcastically, causing Amrita to roll her eyes, though she still felt goosebumps on her arms from the frightening look the man had about him. She wondered briefly if he were alright in the head.

"Loki's gonna drag this out, so," Steve said. He turned his attention to the muscled blond man that Amrita was curious about. "Thor. What's his play?"

_Thor._ The name felt familiar to her, somehow. As though she'd heard it in a past life. Perhaps even been familiar with it. She felt a connection being drawn in her mind, like a line on paper. _Thor and Loki are brothers,_ she thought, though she could not tell what had made her draw that conclusion. She felt overcome with confusion.

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor murmured. "They're not of Asgard, or any world known."

_Asgard._ A word that drew to mind beautiful architecture and strong warriors. She had been there before. Where was it? It was another realm, was it not? How had she even gotten there? She grew frustrated with the fact that she knew what this Thor spoke of, but not _why_ she knew it. She ground her teeth together, drawing Bruce's attention. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head, silently telling him not to worry about it.

"An army," Steve said. "From outer space." He sounded dumbfounded. Amrita supposed it would sound unbelievable to the average human. Captain America wasn't necessarily average, but if he looked the same as he had during the war, he must have been removed from some sort of stasis quite recently. Even super humans aged, after all.

Bruce raised his eyebrows at the conversation.

"So he's building another portal," he stated, taking off the glasses which he'd slid back on to watch the surveillance footage. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Erik Selvig?" Thor asked, looking surprised.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce extrapolated.

Thor frowned. "He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha said, leaning her elbows on the table in front of her. She glanced off to the side and added grimly, "Along with one of ours."

"Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Steve said, eyebrow raised.

Bruce shook his head. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can _smell_ the crazy on him."

Amrita disguised her laugh as a cough, causing Bruce to smirk at her. She hid her grin behind her hand.

Thor frowned at the two of them; mostly at Bruce, though. "Have care how you speak," he demanded. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard—and he is my brother."

"He killed over eighty people in two days," Natasha said flatly.

Thor had the decency to look ashamed of his brother's actions. "He is adopted," he mumbled, as though that made it any more alright.

Amrita felt herself withdraw into the recesses of her mind. She had a feeling that this Loki was more than just a dangerous Asgardian. She had met him before; she could feel it in her bones. Thor did not seem to recognize her, but she did not remember him in particular, either. It must have been over a dozen reincarnations ago that she had met the Asgardians, however, because she could not for the life of her remember anything past what had come to her mind unbidden. She frowned as she pulled herself back out of her mind to focus on the conversation once again, turning her head towards Bruce, who was speaking.

"…What do they need the iridium for?"

Tony waved his hand in the air like an excited elementary school kid who had the answer to the question, swallowing down his mouthful of peanuts.

"Ooh, pick me!" he said. "It's a stabilizing agent. Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." He stood up, going up to the screens at the front of the room. He started rattling on about a power source for the portal, using scientific terms that escaped Amrita's grasp. It made her head spin trying to follow what he was saying, and it just got worse when Bruce jumped into the conversation with more science jargon. She rubbed her temples, trying to fight back the impending headache as Stark grinned at Bruce.

"Finally! Someone who speaks English," he said, as they shook hands. "It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into a giant green rage monster," he said with a straight face.

Bruce gave a tight smile, gaze flitting over to Amrita for a moment, noting her curious look; head tilted slightly to the side, eyebrows raised. He dreaded the questions she would undoubtedly have for him later on the subject. He pointedly turned his attention back to the conversation at hand, as Fury strode into the room, bitter about the damage that Loki had managed to do within the span of forty-eight hours. Once there was a lull in the conversation following Fury's Wizard of Oz reference, Tony rolled his eyes and turned to Bruce.

"Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce nodded, gesturing in the direction of the lab. "This way," he said, letting Tony go ahead of him. He caught Amrita's eye before he stepped out, pausing in mid-step and raising his eyebrows, pointing at the lab, wordlessly asking if she was going to join them. She gave a tired smile and shook her head, and he shrugged, smiling back before he headed off. No one could say he hadn't at least tried to get her to socialize more.

Amrita pinched the bridge of her nose. Her headache was just getting worse as time wore on. Fury had strode away from the group a bit to discuss something with a brunette female agent that she hadn't even noticed when she'd entered the room. She was a bit creeped out by that, but figured that just meant the woman was really good at her job. She sighed, figuring now was as good a time as any for her to head back to bed for the night. She glanced around for a clock and saw that it was already almost ten o'clock. She frowned. Definitely time to go back to bed. She needed to catch up on the sleep she had missed out on the night before. She was just about to leave when she thought to speak to Natasha about the possibility of getting some more clothes. The redhead nodded and assured her she would procure some work clothes for her to wear in the morning. With a quick thanks, she quickly headed for her room before she could be held up any longer.

* * *

When she got back to her room, Amrita did some stretches before bed, working out the stiff muscles that she had from working all day. She wasn't used to such long hours after not having a steady job for so long. She especially felt the tension built up in her neck as she rolled it, trying to work out the kinks. Sighing, she got a quick shower and brushed her teeth before climbing into bed. She was practically dragging her feet by the time she was ready for bed, and she flopped down on the bed, lacking the energy to even crawl underneath the covers.

Her head hit the pillow, and she was out like a light.

When Amrita opened her eyes, she was no longer in her room on the helicarrier, but instead, she was in a grassy orchard that was vaguely familiar to her. She turned in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint anything that might tell her where she was, when she saw the buildings in the distance. The architecture was the same as she had seen in her mind's eye when Thor had mentioned Asgard earlier.

_So I am in Asgard, then,_ she thought. _Or at least I'm dreaming of it._

"So it is you, then," a silken voice said, and she turned around to see the prisoner, Loki, standing on the other side of the orchard clearing. "It's been quite some time since we last met, Lady Garuda. Your master thought you lost forever."

The name struck a resonant chord within her, and she knew without a doubt it was her true name. But she felt awkward being called by it, almost as though she did not deserve the title. She could not remember why she felt that way, though.

She gave an awkward cough, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"I've not been called that name since before I can remember," she said. "I go by Amrita these days."

Loki's eyes sparked with mischief and malice, and he stalked towards her. Alarmed, she tried to step back, only to find her feet refused to obey her. She stood there, helpless, as the god circled her like a predator would its prey.

"Oh, you truly _have_ become lost, haven't you?" he said with a manic grin. "Not only in the physical sense, but mentally, as well…as your true form grows distant with disuse, so too does your mind become so addled with Midgardian memories that you cannot remember your true reason for being here in the first place." He reached his hands towards her temples, his long fingers digging painfully into her flesh. "Oh, but I can see. And would you not give _everything_ to know of your purpose in being here, Garuda?"

Amrita ground her teeth together as she could feel whatever was gluing her feet to the ground slowly coming undone as she continued straining at it. She growled in her throat as she pulled at it, feeling her forehead break out in a sweat from the effort.

"_Not. Everything,_" she bit out as she finally moved a step back.

She woke up panting.

Amrita's eyes quickly glanced around the dark room, only making out the vague shapes of everything. There were no person-shaped figures, though, so she knew that whatever Loki had done to meet with her in her dream, he had done it from afar, using magic. She growled under her breath at the thought of the conniving devil. He had tried to manipulate her onto his side using her forgotten past. And while she would go great lengths to find out who she was and why she was here on earth, she would not sacrifice her own moral code to do so. Loki had killed innocent people, and she had sworn she would never do such a thing.

Rolling onto her back and staring blankly at the ceiling, Amrita felt her mind roiling with thoughts, questions that had gone unanswered for so long. She had always had this feeling in the back of her mind, throughout all the lives she could recall, of ultimate betrayal. She felt a certain bitterness that lay deep within her being that was just waiting to be sated. She hated to admit to herself that Loki's offer of giving her the answers she so desperately wanted had tempted her. Briefly; but it had, nonetheless. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands as a biting reprimand for such thoughts. She glanced over at the alarm clock sitting unassumingly on her nightstand, the bright red numbers glaring back at her: five-oh-nine. She heaved a sigh.

_Might as well get ready to face another day._


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **You guys never cease to amaze me. Thanks, y'all. :) And to answer a couple questions asked, no, Amrita is not Asgardian...however, she is based off of a different culture's mythology... Aaaand that's enough clues for now! If my chapters continue to go the way I'm planning there should be answers to any questions of her past/origin in chapter 11 and/or 12.

Bit of a longer chapter this time 'round.

I don't own Marvel/The Avengers. Sadface.

* * *

Amrita sat in her office, fiddling with her stethoscope. It was a much slower day than it had been the day before, and she found herself growing restless. All the free time only allowed her mind to wander back to the conversation she had had with Loki in her dream last night. He had called her Garuda—_eagle_. She shook her head, confused.

Just who the hell _was_ she?

Sighing, she hooked her stethoscope back around her neck and placed the sign in the door saying she had gone for a break. It wasn't quite ten o'clock in the morning, but she already felt like she was ready to call it a day.

Amrita went to the cafeteria and got two chai teas and, in the spur of the moment, grabbed a peach for Bruce. Who knew how long he and Tony had 'played' last night, or if they'd even stopped to take a rest. If they hadn't, she knew whose ass she was going to light on fire, and it wasn't Bruce's.

Amrita rolled her eyes when she saw that the two men were both engrossed in a number of holographic screens that displayed a bunch of numbers and graphs. She couldn't have deciphered what they all meant if her life depended on it, but the two of them seemed quite interested in what the screens had to say. She knocked on the glass, causing both of them to turn. Tony gave her a suspicious look, but Bruce smiled and opened the door for her, seeing that her hands were full.

"You know, I did actually eat breakfast this morning," he said amusedly as he took the fruit and tea meant for him from her hands.

She gasped playfully and clasped her hand over her heart.

"Bless my soul! Miracles do come true," she said, then asked sternly, "but did you manage to get some sleep last night?"

He rolled his eyes. "Six hours. Scout's honor," he said, holding up his hand.

Tony raised an eyebrow at the two of them and their joking banter.

"Oh sure, when I need genuine medical attention she tries to turn me into Korean barbecue but with you she's Doctor Snuggles."

Amrita gave him a death glare, while Bruce's lips twitched upward in an amused smile.

"Well, Tony, you do have a bit of an…_abrasive_ personality."

Amrita snorted. "That's a gentle way of saying, _you're a jackass_."

Bruce chuckled. Tony did not.

"Wow. Aren't you just a great big ball of sunshine," he said sarcastically. Amrita tried to smile at the annoying billionaire, but ended up looking like she was baring her teeth more than anything.

"I'm surprised you can see any light that far up your rectum," she sassed back.

"Whoa, children," Bruce said, stepping in as the mediator before things got too out of hand. "Play nice. I don't know about you two, but I don't think most of the people on this ship would appreciate it if you made daddy angry," he said, gesturing to himself when he said 'daddy'.

"Huh. Yeah, I guess," Stark said.

Amrita nodded as well, though she was confused as to why making Bruce angry bore any significance to any of the SHIELD agents on the helicarrier. She supposed it had to do with the whole 'enormous green rage monster' remark Tony had made to Bruce the night before that she hadn't had a chance to ask the man about yet.

Tony moved over to the workspace next to Bruce, who had turned back to the computer screen and was looking at a sort of information that made her brain hurt just trying to process it. Tony picked up some sort of metal object and examined it. Without warning, he prodded Bruce in the side with it, and Amrita heard the _zap_ of electricity as Bruce jumped, looking surprised but otherwise unscathed. A good thing, Amrita thought, because Stark got on her nerves so much she probably would've used it as an excuse to maim the man if he'd actually injured the mellow scientist.

Bruce turned an annoyed glare on Tony.

"_Ow!_"

Tony frowned. "Nothing?"

Steve pushed through the lab door, the angry look on his face making it pretty obvious that he had seen the childish stunt that Tony had pulled.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" he demanded of the sarcastic billionaire.

Tony just shrugged, talking to Bruce as though Steve hadn't even come in.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" he said with an amused look. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Tony's questions just proved to make Steve even angrier. Amrita couldn't help but note that the man seemed very concerned. Apparently this whole 'rage monster' thing was more of a serious issue than Stark's offhand comments had led her to believe. Her brow furrowed as she silently watched the back-and-forth between the three men.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve demanded of Tony.

Tony pretended to think for second before replying smartly, "Funny things are."

Steve looked almost shocked at Tony's gall, but he quickly gathered his wits again. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't _funny_." He snapped, before saying somewhat sheepishly to Bruce, "Sorry, doctor."

Bruce shook his head. "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come on this ship if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony rolled his eyes. "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to _strut._"

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve said disapprovingly.

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "You think I'm not?" He scoffed a bit. "Why did Fury call us, and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?" he said, waving the electrical prod to accentuate his point. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked, narrowing his eyes a bit.

Amrita resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Steve was certainly a soldier, dedicated to following orders without question; that was for sure. She had come on board to help out, but she was fairly certain that Fury had an agenda, despite that she didn't know what it was yet. Secret government officials such as him almost always did, in her experience. She sat herself down on the nearest chair, interested in hearing if Stark had any theories about Fury. Despite that she despised the man and his sarcastic attitude, she couldn't deny that he seemed quite intelligent.

Tony gave Steve an 'are-you-serious' look.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's _the spy._ His secrets have secrets," he emphasized, pointing over at Bruce. "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"

Bruce looked surprised and highly uncomfortable at being put on the spot so suddenly. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before stammering out, "Uh…I just…wanna finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" Steve asked, giving him a questioning look.

There was a moment of silence, and Amrita looked at Bruce curiously. Surely he must have suspected something, as well. After all, it would have been odd if such an intelligent man as he were to trust a spy, of all people, not to be hiding something. Whether or not that something were detrimental to them would be the major question, she thought.

Bruce frowned.

"'A warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube," he said, taking his glasses off and folding them in his hands.

Steve nodded. "I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you," Bruce said, pointing at Tony. "Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."

Steve pursed his lips in distaste. "Stark Tower? That big ugly…" his eyes darted over to Tony, who was giving him the stink-eye, and he decided against using the term he'd intended to use, "…building in New York?"

Bruce gave a vaguely amused look at Steve's quick save. "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

Tony nodded. "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

Bruce gestured to Tony. "Exactly. So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Tony gave a thoughtful look. "I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

Steve looked taken aback, and even Amrita had to raise an eyebrow at that. _The sly devil,_ she thought. When had he managed to do that? And how in the world had SHIELD not noticed it? Apparently they weren't quite as advanced as they gave off the vibe of being. Either that, or Tony was a hell of a lot smarter than he had the tendency to act.

"I'm sorry, did you say…?"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said nonchalantly, cutting Steve off in mid-sentence. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." He produced a bag of blueberries that he had been snacking from, offering them to Steve, who refused, then to Bruce. "Blueberry?"

Bruce took a handful, nodding his thanks.

"I'd offer you some, Dr. Grumpypants, but I'm worried you'd poison them at the same time," he said sarcastically. "Besides, I don't really feel like making the effort of walking all the way over there just to make nice," he said, gesturing at the five feet between the workstation he was at and where Amrita sat at a separate counter space. She rolled her eyes, but didn't comment.

Steve shook his head at Tony. "Really. Yet you're confused about why they don't want you around?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at the comment. "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" he said. "Historically…not awesome."

Steve frowned. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed," he pressed, trying to make Tony see things his way. "We have orders. We should follow them."

Tony gave him an unimpressed look. "Following isn't really my style."

Steve returned his look with a sarcastic smile. "Right. And you're all about style, aren't you?"

Amrita leaned forward on her elbows, propped up on the counter in front of her, eyes intent on Steve and Tony. It was like watching a tennis match, the two trading snide comments as the tension built between them. She glanced at Bruce, and saw him standing rigid at his work station, trying resolutely to work on whatever it was he was working on and ignore the two bickering next to him, and failing miserably. He glanced over at her and gave her an exasperated look. She shrugged, silently saying she wasn't sure what she could do, if anything, and gave him a pitying look. He replied with an annoyed look and went back to looking at the screen in front of him.

Amrita could see clearly that Steve's comment had hit a nerve. Tony quickly covered it up with more sarcasm.

"Of all the people in this room," he said, "which of us is: A, wearing a spangly outfit; and B, not of use?"

Bruce, apparently unable to let the bickering continue, cut in before Steve could shoot back another snarky comment.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" he asked, hoping to divert the argument before it dissolved into fisticuffs. Having a brawl happen right next to him was definitely something he did not need with his condition.

Steve was quiet for a moment, looking pensive. He shook his head, though, and frowned at the two scientists.

"Just find the cube," he all but snapped, quickly striding out of the lab, the door closing just a little too quietly for it to be qualified as being slammed shut.

Tony pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes at the door that Steve had just left through.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" he said, sounding unimpressed. "Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

Bruce furrowed his brow. "He's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

Tony snorted. "What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it," Bruce said mildly.

Tony raised his eyebrows at the comment. "Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Bruce gave a wistful look. "Ah, see, I don't _get_ a suit of armor," he corrected. "I'm exposed—like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

Amrita was listening intently to the conversation despite the fact that Tony made it a point not to speak to her, and Bruce was trying to split his attention so that he could work at the same time. As Tony opened his mouth to reply, though, she felt herself falling. It was the oddest sensation—and yet it was familiar to her. She'd had it several times throughout the years, as she recalled. It was almost as though she were being pulled away to another plane, as she saw herself sitting on the chair in the lab as she fell back and away, her surroundings fading to black, small specks of light appearing. Stars, she figured. That was what they looked like, anyway. She could never quite tell. It was as though she were looking at things through a dirty glass, smudged with fingerprints.

She could hear muffled voices: one male, one female. The male sounded determined about something, while the female sounded like she was trying to dissuade the male about whatever it was they were talking about. She thought she could make out the words 'search' and 'dimensions', but with how warped and muted the voices sounded, she couldn't quite be sure. The muffled voices were familiar, though. She had heard them some of the other times she'd been pulled here, though they'd never given any indication that they noticed her. She wasn't even sure if she was visible. She couldn't see her hands or any other part of her. She always figured this was what people meant when they mentioned that they'd had out-of-body experiences.

Not that she'd heard of anyone having an out-of-body experience in space, though…

It was rather sudden that she felt herself being snapped back to reality, hurtling back to her body at such a speed that when she connected with it, she was sent sprawling forward onto the ground. She groaned, and she could hear Tony's annoying remark from across the room.

"Not bad. I give you an eight out of ten. Little shaky on the landing."

Amrita grit her teeth together so she didn't sink to his level by biting back a retort. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, noticing the pair of shoes in front of her. She looked up to see Bruce, looking concerned.

"Need a hand up?" he said, looking a bit unsure whether he should help or not. He started to hold out his hand towards her, but clenched the fist shut, letting it fall to his side once more.

Amrita gave a brief smile, touched that he had thought to offer, but not feeling comfortable with the idea of physical contact. She wasn't even used to being around other people just yet.

"Thanks. I've got it, though," she said, pulling herself up with the help of the counter next to her and dusting herself off.

Bruce just shrugged. He looked as though he might say something, but he was interrupted by the door of the lab opening, Nick Fury striding into the room, fixing his one-eyed glare on Tony.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" he demanded angrily.

"Uh…kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony said nonchalantly, not even looking up from the screen he was working away at.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury all but growled.

Bruce, who was attempting not to look awkward as he stood two steps back from Amrita, raised an eyebrow at Fury.

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile," he explained. Even the usually patient man sounded a bit annoyed, though, at Fury's demands.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss," Tony quipped, studying his screen intently as his fingers stopped moving at their usual dizzying speed. "What is Phase Two?"

Steve barged into the room, dropping a dangerous-looking assault rifle on the table next to him. It landed with a loud clang.

"Phase Two is SHIELD used the cube to make weapons," he said flatly, turning to Tony. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."

Tony shrugged in response.

Fury looked momentarily taken by surprise, but his expression quickly smoothed over as he tried to do the same with the potentially problematic situation at hand.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're…"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupted, moving the screen he was working on towards Fury so that it displayed fully a set of blueprints for the exact weapon that Steve had brought into the lab. He gave him a sarcastic smile. "What were you lying?"

Steve gave Fury a begrudging look. "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

Thor and Natasha entered the lab, and Amrita grimaced at all of the bodies in the room. It was a big enough room, but all of the other people in the room were between herself and the door, and she felt trapped. She wasn't claustrophobic, but social settings ignited a small sense of panic within her. She focused on taking deep breaths, inching further away from the group to try and collect herself as they all seemed to break down into angry bickering. She tried to lock eyes with Bruce, but he seemed to be drawn into the arguments just as much as everyone else. She thought she saw a hint of green in his normally blue eyes, but she couldn't tell for sure at this distance. She shook her head, pressing herself back against the far wall when she reached it, closing her eyes and attempting to tune out the sound of everyone's raised voices. She tried to recall how her favorite poem from her last life had gone. Some of the words escaped her, despite how hard she tried to remember.

There was a moment of silence, and surprised, Amrita raised her head, opening her eyes to look at the scene before her. Everyone was staring at Bruce, and he hesitated before speaking.

"I got low," he said softly, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!"

_The other guy? Is he talking about that 'green rage monster' everyone keeps mentioning?_ She thought, trying to control her shock at the revelation that her new friend had been suicidal. She clenched her fists. If the 'other guy' hadn't kept Bruce from killing himself, she wondered how alone she would be right now. Would she have had the courage to reach out to anyone else on this ship? She hadn't met anyone as patient and kind as the scientist there yet. She decided to be grateful that this 'other guy' had foiled Bruce's plans of suicide. Maybe she'd thank him, if she ever met him.

"…So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!" he said, looking genuinely upset, and it was directed at Natasha. The redhead seemed a bit taken aback, which was unusual given her natural poker face. Bruce glared at her.

"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Amrita did not miss how both Natasha and Director Fury's hands drifted down to their weapons holsters.

"Dr. Banner… Put down the scepter," Steve said.

Bruce looked down and seemed shocked to find that he was holding Loki's scepter in his hand. He was distracted by the computer beeping, and everyone turned their attention to it.

"Got it," Tony said, and Bruce placed the scepter down, walking over to the work station to join him at the computer.

"Sorry kids," he muttered, "you don't get to see my little party trick after all."

"Have you located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

"I can get there faster," Tony quipped.

Steve looked frustrated. "Look, all of us…"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," the god of thunder interrupted.

Tony went to leave, but Steve stopped him, and they dissolved into bickering once again. Amrita winced. She'd hoped that the 'team' she was supposed to be a part of would be capable of relating to each other better than this. This was absolute chaos. She looked over to Bruce, who was looking at the screen in front of him with an expression of almost…horror.

"Oh, my God," he said.

And then her world exploded.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Wow! Thank you again to everyone who reviewed, especially _DanathaKettu_ who has been a consistent reviewer the past few chapters. :)

As for something addressed by one of the guest reviewers: Seeing as this chapter marks the end of the Avengers movie plotline, we'll be seeing a bit more Bruce/Amrita interaction/relationship development, and some more Amrita character development as we'll be getting more of her backstory in the next few chapters. So stay tuned! Haha.

Also, sorry. I kind of chickened out this chapter and didn't write the actiony invasion bit. :x Sorry. Forgive me? There will be cute fluff next chapter...

As always, I don't own Marvel/The Avengers. Just Amrita and my plotline for her.

* * *

Amrita slowly came back to consciousness, aware that she must have hit her head when the explosion had rocked the helicarrier. She could feel what would have been a concussion repairing itself, the mild itch of the cells regenerating at a rapid pace a reminder of what she was: inhuman. She stirred, slowly sitting herself up as she surveyed her surroundings. It was the same place, but it looked like the place had taken quite a hit with how damaged her surroundings were. She was aware of Natasha speaking, but as she turned her attention to the redhead, she realized she wasn't speaking to her.

"We're gonna be okay. Right?" she breathed, sounding almost panicked. It sounded wrong coming from the normally stoic super-spy. As Amrita located her, she noticed that the redhead was speaking to Bruce, who was crouched over, seeming to be struggling with something. It almost looked like there was something wrong with his face, and…were his eyes green? "I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never…"

"**_Your life?_**" Bruce asked angrily.

Only, that did not sound like Bruce.

Another explosion rocked the helicarrier, and Amrita threw her arms over her head so she wouldn't hit it again just when it was healed from the first time round. Debris came down around her, a fairly large chunk landing on her leg before shifting off of it. She grit her teeth as she felt the bone fracture, holding it still while it knit itself back together again.

"Bruce," she heard Natasha say, almost pleading.

Amrita located their forms once again in the dark, as the lights had gone out with the last explosion. Something was wrong with Bruce's form, though. It was…shifting. Growing.

_The 'other guy'?_

There was a moment's pause once Bruce's form stopped changing. Then, Natasha darted out of the room. Bruce—or the 'other guy'—charged after her. She squinted, trying to make out where they'd gone, but couldn't see outside the room. It was dark out there, too.

There was an inhuman roar.

The hairs on the back of Amrita's neck stood up at the sound. She knew then that Bruce's 'other guy' was dangerous, and it had Natasha set in its sights. She cursed under her breath, focusing on speeding up her healing. She had to help Natasha. The woman may be capable of handling herself, but if she could keep people from getting hurt, then goddamnit, that was what she was going to do. She felt her leg finish healing and immediately shot up, darting out of the room and heading in the direction that she could hear the struggle heading off in.

Amrita was growing frustrated. She could hear the other guy tearing up the ship, but every time she thought she'd found him, she heard him going off in another direction. This was bad. Not only did they have an outside force trying to destroy the helicarrier, they had friendly fire from within, too.

Finally, Amrita found him, and she could feel her jaw drop at the sight. He was large; he was angry; and he was undeniably _green._

Somehow this surprised her more than it should have. After all, Tony had remarked about it. She hadn't actually expected him to be _so green,_ though.

She shook her head. She didn't have time to think about that as Thor, who had apparently joined the fight in Natasha's stead (she sincerely hoped that didn't mean the woman was out of commission), reached out his hand and a lethal-looking hammer landed in it as though summoned—and Thor swung with a mighty uppercut, sending Bruce flying outside the helicarrier and into a fighter jet.

Amrita thought, with a lurch of her heart, that maybe Bruce would fall off the jet and plummet to his death, but instead he ripped the tail off the jet and came back for more, throwing the large chunk of metal at Thor, who dodged out of the way.

Amrita could feel the determination running through her veins.

_No. No one else is going to get hurt._

Something was changing, but she didn't even pay it any attention. She could feel her limbs grow lighter, yet stronger at the same time. She could feel an itch at her back, and then a slight weight that settled there. The ground grew further away. But she was not paying any of those changes any heed. She was focused on getting to the 'other guy' and keeping everyone on the helicarrier safe. She charged the other guy before he could brawl with Thor again, tackling him straight out of the opening that had been ripped in the side of the helicarrier moments before.

The other guy roared in anger, glaring at her as she had taken him away from his fight. They were both plummeting towards the earth, but for some reason Amrita felt serene about this, as though she knew she could stop at any time.

"Bruce," she called out over the wind rushing past them, hoping she was loud enough for him to hear. If he could even hear when he was in that state. "You need to calm down. I'm not going to let you hurt anyone. It's just you and me, now."

If Bruce heard her, he didn't make it known. The other guy roared and tried to reach up to grab her, but she barrel-rolled away from his grasp. They continued to fall, and eventually the other guy turned his attention to the ground that was rushing up to meet them, looking as though he was resigned to his fate. He curled up into himself, as though trying to protect himself. Amrita sighed and plunged towards him, maneuvering with ease. She grabbed him by one of his enormous legs and slowed their descent without even thinking about it.

That was when she noticed the wings.

She was startled at the sight of them. They were deep auburn, gold, and snowy white. Almost like that of—

_An eagle,_ her mind completed the comparison.

She shrieked, and the wings seemed to dissolve with the sound. Unable to slow their descent anymore, the two of them dropped, the other guy giving a disgruntled sound at the sudden change as they headed straight for the roof of a barn. The other guy made contact first, breaking the hard wood that Amrita was sure would have broken her spine (and that was the most unpleasant thing she'd ever experienced having broken before by a long shot), and they tumbled one after the other into a large haystack. Despite that they still made contact hard enough for Amrita to get several bruises, she was thankful that it wasn't anything worse than that.

Amrita looked over at the other guy, and found that he seemed to have lost consciousness when they made contact, as his features were slowly shifting back into that of Bruce's. She blushed heavily and looked away when she realized that he was naked as the day he was born, crawling out of the haystack and looking around at the building they were in. There were a couple horses in stalls on the other end of the building, and a barn cat came up to her, winding around her legs. She sat down on the floor, accepting the warmth of the creature as it curled up in her lap. She stroked down its spine as she thought about the dizzying event that had just occurred.

She had _flown._

Well, mostly she had fallen. But towards the end, _she had flown._

How had she changed like that? It had just seemed so natural to her, she hadn't even thought about it when it had happened. Had something like that happened before? She couldn't recall any such thing happening in any of the past lives that she could recall. She wracked her brain trying to remember, but…nothing came to mind.

But it had seemed so _natural._ Surely, it must have happened before…maybe it just hadn't happened recently. Maybe because she hadn't _needed_ it to happen recently. What had she been thinking about before she had changed? Protecting people? She had been trying to make sure no one else got hurt… She wondered if she could do it again, if she tried. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the thought that she needed to protect everyone. She scrunched up her nose in concentration. After a minute, she opened her eyes, eager to see the result.

There was no change.

She gave a growl of frustration, which spooked the cat. It leapt gracefully off her lap and trotted off, slipping out of the barn through a cat flap on the door. Amrita stared at her hands, wondering how she was supposed to figure out who and what she was when even her own body kept secrets from her.

The barn door creaked open, and Amrita leapt to her feet, thinking that maybe someone had followed their descent from the helicarrier.

An older man stepped cautiously into the barn, eyebrows raised when he noticed her. They shot up higher when he saw Bruce. She made it a point to look in the opposite direction.

"Huh. Definitely not something you see every day," he said. "He was a bit bigger and greener before, wasn't he?"

Amrita nodded.

"Sorry about your roof," she said lamely. She wasn't sure if SHIELD would offer to repair it or not, so she didn't want to make any empty promises.

The farmer shrugged. "Eh. It was 'bout time to fix it up anyway," he said. "Used to be a leak in the part you fell through…it'll just be a bit bigger now."

Amrita chuckled.

"Either way. I feel bad. I didn't mean for that to happen…"

The farmer smiled at her.

"Least you're both alive. A roof can be rebuilt, but a person…"

Amrita pursed her lips, deciding it would be best not to mention her abilities. The farmer seemed to be taking Bruce's 'condition' quite well, but she didn't want to push his mental limits by adding more revelations to the ones he'd already had today.

"Anyway. I'll go see if I've got some clothes that'll fit your man. Can't have him runnin' around in the buff all day," he said, chuckling as he went.

Amrita sat back down on the barn floor, waiting. What for, she wasn't sure. Perhaps she was just waiting for Bruce to wake up so that they could find the team again, but she felt like she was waiting for something…bigger. As though she were waiting for some sort of instruction. Why would she feel that way? It was confusing. Almost as confusing as her transformation was earlier.

Her body was overcome with a sudden feeling of heaviness, as though she were being crushed by a heavy stone.

"Garuda," she heard a male voice say. She knew instinctively that it was the male voice that she had heard during her out-of-body experiences. It almost felt as though the owner of the voice was smiling.

"I've found you."

And then the voice was gone, and she was falling into unconsciousness for the second time that day.

* * *

When Amrita came to, Bruce was (thankfully) dressed, and having a conversation with the farmer whose barn they'd broken. The older gentleman noticed her as she sat up, hay sticking out of her hair at odd angles, which she hastily brushed out, annoyed.

"Oh, good. Your fella here was telling me it was pretty important he get going. He was just about ready to leave without you if you didn't wake up soon," he said, raising an eyebrow at Bruce, who had the decency to look embarrassed at the accusation.

"Sorry, doc," he said. "National emergency and all. I wouldn't have left you otherwise."

Amrita gave a wan smile. "Yeah. I understand," she said. Not that she appreciated the fact that he would have left her behind any more because of the circumstances, but at least it kept her from dwelling on it. He had as good of an excuse as there existed. She stood up, dusting off her pants. "Good thing I'm not wearing a skirt today," she muttered. "Do you have any idea how we're going to find the rest of the team, let alone rendezvous with them?"

"Oh, I know where we're going," he said. "Stark Tower."

Amrita just raised an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "Call it a hunch." He flashed a key at her. "And yes, I have an idea on how we're going to rendezvous with them."

The other eyebrow rose up to join its twin. "Do tell."

"Actually, why don't I show, instead?" he said, beckoning her to follow him as he strode out of the barn and stopped in the yard, smiling proudly at the ride he'd found them. Amrita paled.

"Oh, no."

Bruce grinned.

"Oh, _yes._"

* * *

Bruce and Amrita were enjoying the exhilarating feeling of the wind in their hair as they rode the old, beaten-up motorcycle at its top speed down the highway in the direction of New York City; specifically Manhattan.

Well, Bruce was enjoying the ride. Amrita had shrieked at every bump and swerve for about the first twelve minutes before she'd finally quieted down and buried her face in Bruce's shoulder, holding his middle in a death grip. Bruce would've laughed if he didn't think the force of doing so might crack one of his ribs.

Just as they were reaching Manhattan, a beam of light shot up into the sky, seeming to rip a hole in the sky.

"Damn it," Bruce muttered, unwilling to urge the bike any faster, as they'd slowed down a fair bit due to the city traffic. His cursing caused Amrita to lift her head up in worry.

"What?" she asked, before she caught sight of the portal that was opening in the sky above the city. "…Oh."

"Yeah." Bruce grimaced. "We're going to need the big guns."

"So…you," she said, stating the obvious.

"No, not me. The other guy," he said.

"So…you."

"No. We're not the same. He breaks buildings. I don't."

"Technically, you kind of do," Amrita said. "Y'know, being as you inhabit the same body and share the same mind. Speaking of which, do you black out when you turn into your greener half or are you still aware of what's happening?"

"I…guess I'm still aware, I just don't really have a handle on what the other guy is doing."

"You know, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem."

Bruce was silent for a moment. "You know, usually I would just tell you not to use such an overused line of advice on me, but…you do have a point."

"I make a point of having points," Amrita said, though she could feel her face flushing at the somewhat-compliment. On top of that, driving slower like they were now made her super aware of the fact that she was touching Bruce, quite fully. A member of the male gender. And not a bad looking specimen, either. "It's very…pointy," she ended lamely.

Bruce chuckled, and they drove in relative silence for a moment, though they could hear the sounds of fighting from up ahead, as the din grew louder as they went. A few moments later, Amrita withheld a sigh of relief as Bruce slowed the motorcycle to a stop in the middle of the street in front of Steve and Natasha. She immediately released her death grip on his torso, allowing him to breathe easy once more.

"Hey, lovebirds. Honeymoon's over," Clint said, looking between the two of them as Amrita scrambled off of the motorbike, giving it the stink eye.

Bruce gave Clint a 'don't-even-start' look before looking around at the damage that had already been done, and the Chitauri still pouring in from the crack in the sky.

"So, this all seems…horrible," he said.

"I've seen worse," Natasha said, straight-faced as ever.

Banner grimaced. "Sorry."

"No. We could use a little worse," she stated decisively.

"Stark? We got him," Steve said over his comm. There was a pause as Amrita assumed he was listening to a response. "Just like you said." Another pause, and then the rest of the team looked up to see a gigantic leviathan-like creature barreling down the street towards them, damaging and toppling buildings as it went.

"I…I don't see how that's a party," Natasha said, her eyes wide for once, betraying her shock at the sheer enormity of what they were up against.

Steve nodded his agreement, then turned his gaze to Bruce as the scientist started walking towards the oncoming monster without hesitating.

"Dr. Banner…now might be a really good time for you to get angry," Steve said, not wanting the man to head into battle unprepared.

"That's my secret, Captain," he said, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the team behind him.

"I'm always angry."

And with that, he transformed.

* * *

The team had gathered in the shawarma joint that Tony had been going on about after his brush with death. Now that Loki was once again secured, and they no longer had the threat of the Chitauri invasion to worry about since Natasha had closed the portal, Tony claimed they could use some R&R. And even Amrita, who had done more healing than fighting, felt exhausted enough to raise her glass in a toast to his statement.

Despite that she felt her and Tony's personalities seemed to clash quite badly on a regular day, it seemed that nothing brought people together quite like the threat of impending doom.

"So Bruce," Tony said, breaching the silence but for the clinking of cutlery. "You should come work at Stark Industries. You could live at Stark Tower seeing as I doubt there are a lot of landlords that would want the Hulk smashing up their property every time he accidentally burns his toast."

Bruce gave him a disapproving look. "You and I both know I'm not _that_ prone to having fits," he said. "But I'll think about it." He looked across the table at Amrita, who was getting frustrated as she was trying to eat daintily so she wouldn't look like a slob, but her food kept falling off her fork before it reached her mouth. Bruce grinned and shook his head at the sight, then turned back to Tony.

"What about Amrita?" he asked.

Tony shrugged. "What about her? Doesn't she have a place of her own to go back to?"

Bruce's eyebrows drew together. "She was living in an isolated shack outside the Indian village near where I lived before SHIELD picked her and I both up," he said, recalling how they'd first met. "I doubt she even has a passport… She could use some help to get a regular job," he said, looking pointedly at the billionaire.

Tony balked. "Why not let SHIELD help her get a job? I'm sure they'd be more than willing to, and you're not going to let this go are you," he said, seeing the look that Bruce was giving him.

"Nope."

Tony frowned. "Fine. Hey, Dr. Doom," he said, snapping his fingers to get Amrita's attention. She frowned when she looked up and her food fell off her fork yet again. "Stark Industries is the main shareholder in a hospital not far from here. If you want, I can set you up with an interview there, they should have a couple openings at the moment if my memory serves right."

Amrita's jaw dropped. As she'd been attempting to eat the surprisingly messy food (or maybe it was just because she wasn't used to it and was trying to eat it wrong? She wasn't sure), she had been mulling over what was going to happen next now that the threat to the earth had been thwarted. She had been thinking about how she had felt she needed a change of scenery even before SHIELD had showed up and swept her off to help with the Avengers initiative. And now that she'd made friends with Bruce…well, she wasn't sure she wanted to nip that in the bud before they even really got to know each other. He had been kind to her, and that was something she hadn't experienced in some time. She wasn't ready to go back to the wariness of the villagers in India again.

"I would love that," she said, unable to keep the grin off her face. "Thank you, Mr. Stark. Seriously, I mean it."

Tony rolled his eyes. "The things it takes to get a little respect around here," he muttered, but she could see the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

Thor interrupted everyone's eating by raising his glass.

"Friends, a toast," he said. "May we all battle as gloriously in the future as we have this day."

Amrita raised her eyebrows, feeling as though that didn't really pertain to what she had contributed, but raised her glass anyways, clinking it with everyone else's.

"Indeed," Tony said. "May the Avengers kick much ass and take many names."

"Here, here," Clint said.

Amrita rolled her eyes, hiding her smile behind her glass. It was nice to feel like she was part of something once again.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** A bit of a shorter chapter compared to the last two, sorry. But there is some fluff-esque bits, as well as the beginnings of the new plot arc! So excited for it. :D

Thank you to everyone who's read, reviewed, followed, and/or favorited! Love y'all, you're amazing.

I don't own, nor am I affiliated with, Marvel or The Avengers. I just own Amrita and my plot for her.

* * *

Two weeks later found Amrita settling into her new home, just a stone's throw from Stark Tower. The small, two-bedroom house had been purchased using a mysterious bank account that had been opened in her name without her knowledge, which held what Bruce had told her was a sizeable sum of money. She suspected it was SHIELD's doing, seeing as she also received a package in the mail containing identification such as a birth certificate, SIN number, and other such things which she was quite certain she hadn't had before. Also, apparently SHIELD thought she looked twenty-two years old, she mused. Personally, she thought she looked a couple years older than that, but then she figured if she were planning on staying in Manhattan for more than a couple years (she wasn't sure if she wanted to yet or not—time would tell, she supposed), it was good that they low-balled her age, seeing as she wouldn't appear to grow any older, which eventually people would find suspicious. Dangerously suspicious.

Amrita had gone out and bought a load of things for her house, and for herself. She had gotten Bruce's help for most of it, but had gotten help from Tony's girlfriend, Pepper Potts, for the more singularly-feminine necessities (such as underwear—she wasn't so inconsiderate as to embarrass Bruce by asking him to go shopping for _those_ with her). The redhead was a very down-to-earth person, which she was pleasantly surprised by. She was amazed at how such an egotistical person had managed to find such a wonderful woman, but when she saw them together, she realized that Tony knew exactly how wonderful Pepper was and could see exactly how much he felt for her. Another thing that amazed her was how much money she and Pepper had managed to spend—without even using money. She wasn't used to the conversion from rupees to dollars, but from the set-up of the stores that Pepper dragged her into, she could only guess that they were fairly upscale shops she was buying from. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know how much she'd spent in rupees; she might have a heart attack if she found out.

Amrita was busy putting away the groceries that she had bought earlier that morning. She glanced at the living room, pursing her lips. Pepper had talked her into buying a TV so that she could stay up-to-date with the world news, something that she figured she should do if she was going to be an active part of modern society, but she had no idea how to hook the damn thing up. She considered phoning Bruce (he'd finally managed to teach her how to call someone with the cell phone she'd gotten—she still couldn't text to save her life, though), but pushed the idea away, figuring she had already monopolized enough of his spare time in the past few days. She glanced at the clock, seeing that it was almost lunch time, and pulled out some ingredients to make chicken korma. Bruce and Pepper had been trying to get her to eat more American-style food, but she was so used to the food in India, and despite that she tried to keep an open mind when trying new things, she honestly preferred her usual Indian fare to anything she'd tried in Manhattan to date.

"Smells good."

Amrita jumped, whirling around and brandishing a slotted spoon, as if it could actually do any damage to an intruder. She scowled when she saw that it was just Bruce.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," she muttered. "I thought I told you to knock."

"And I thought I told you to lock your door," Bruce shot back. "This isn't your village where people are too intimidated to provoke you, Amrita. This is New York. It's a big city, and there are people that wouldn't think twice about invading your home."

Amrita paused in her movements, swallowing thickly at the implications of his statement. He wasn't just talking about robbers. She took a deep breath and continued preparing the food to cook, speaking without looking back at him.

"Right. I'll be sure to be more careful from now on," she mumbled. "I'll get you a key cut so you can come in if I'm out."

"Amrita," he said, sighing when she didn't turn around to look at him. "Come on. You know I'm only concerned about your well-being. I know you don't like being reminded of what happened, and for good reason. But it's the ugly truth of what kind of people are out there. There are some sick minds out there, and I just want you to be safe from all that."

Amrita closed her eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath. She turned her head to look at Bruce, giving him a wan smile.

"I know. You're a good friend, Bruce," she said. "Thanks."

Bruce smiled tentatively back at her. As she turned to go back to preparing to cook, he stopped her.

"You know what, stop. Stop cooking," he said. "You keep trying to feed me whenever I come over. Honestly, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to fatten me up before eating me," he joked. She gave a roll of her eyes in reply. "Let's go out. I found this nice little Chinese place the other day not too far from here. Family owned; friendly staff. Plus, it's not too busy, so you don't have to wait long for your food."

Amrita thought for a moment, but gave a nod of assent.

"Alright. You've twisted my arm," she said, scooping the garlic that she'd minced into a baggie and sticking it and the other ingredients she hadn't used yet back in the fridge. She turned back to Bruce, who offered her his arm. She froze for a moment, still not used to the idea of physical contact outside of doctor mode. Outside of her office, she was on a level playing field with everyone else, no longer in a controlled environment. She saw the smile on Bruce's face falter as he saw her hesitation. He moved to take his arm back.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"_No!_ No," she hastily reassured him. "It's okay. It's fine," she said, placing her hand lightly in the crook of his elbow. "See?" She managed a small smile, hoping her nervousness wasn't plastered all over her face.

Bruce didn't quite seem convinced that it was fine, but he let it go, nodding.

"Alright then. Off we go," he said, leading the way to the door and waiting for her to get her shoes on. "And lock the door," he said, raising a challenging eyebrow at her.

She gave him an unimpressed look. "Yes, _father_," she drawled.

Bruce held a hand to his heart, giving her a wounded look.

"I'm hurt," he said. "I may not be young, but I'm not _that _old."

Amrita burst out laughing, feeling the tension from before disappear at his comment. She realized after a moment that he still didn't know about her regeneration, and she started laughing even harder, clutching her side as they walked down the sidewalk. She was pretty sure she was drawing stares from other pedestrians, but she didn't care as she wiped away the tears that had formed in her eyes. Bruce raised both his eyebrows at her.

"O-kay then," he said. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're not as young as you look, then…?"

Amrita pressed her lips together. She wasn't sure if she knew how to broach that topic with Bruce just yet. She knew she didn't want to do it in public, though, that much was for sure.

"It's rude to ask a woman her age," she chided teasingly. "However, let's say that's a discussion for another day and leave it at that. I think some light conversation would be best for now." She stared pointedly at the other people walking past them, hoping to convey her reasoning behind refusing to talk on the subject. A look of understanding passed over Bruce's face, and he nodded.

"Alright," he said, accepting the abrupt change of subject. "So… Have you been catching up with modern society?"

Amrita groaned.

"_Yes._ Don't remind me. I think I was happier off not knowing what a Kardashian was…"

It was Bruce's turn to laugh. "Yeah, society picks some pretty crazy stuff to dwell on."

Amrita snorted. "That's an understatement," she muttered, thinking of some of the rather disturbing things she had stumbled across while using the internet. (She still hadn't been able to find that since the first time Bruce had showed her—she'd managed to find it once by randomly pressing buttons on her 'smart phone', but hadn't tried that method since, as she had ended up bringing up stocks pages and a stop watch and a plethora of other things as well.)

"Hey, speaking of crazy stuff," he said, "how's working in a Stark-funded hospital going?"

Amrita shrugged. "Surprisingly well," she admitted. "It's only been a week, but so far they seem to run a pretty tight ship there. There's some cattiness with the female doctors, but I think that's just because I look a little young to be a doctor already, and they won't be able to find any fault with my work," she said determinedly. And they wouldn't—her superhuman healing ability enabled her to diagnose things more accurately than humans, so even if she hadn't been able to decipher the cause of the problem from what her patients relayed to her, she knew all of the right tests to order and treatments to give. She was certainly a bit old-fashioned in her treatment, mostly in that she refused to use technology unless absolutely necessary (something that the other staff members of the Stark-powered facility seemed to find amusing), but thankfully medicine was the one thing she had kept herself in the loop of even when she was living in isolation in India. It was her passion, after all.

Bruce smiled. "Well, that's good. You seem happy," he noted. "So you're enjoying life in Manhattan?"

Amrita laughed. "You ask me that almost every time you see me. Yes, I'm enjoying life in Manhattan. _So far_," she added teasingly. "It _has_ only been two weeks."

Bruce nodded, humming. "You'll have to keep me posted on that, then."

She rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Uh-huh. I'll remember to let you know the next couple dozen times we get together."

Her remark elicited a laugh from the scientist, before he looked up at the building they were walking past. "Oh, hey, this is it," he said.

The little restaurant was squeezed in between a barber shop and a beauty supplies store. Looking in the window, Amrita could see there were only a handful of other people inside, but the restaurant looked neat and welcoming, with a few richly-colored tapestries decorating the walls. She smiled.

"Looks cozy."

"Glad you think so," Bruce said, pulling the door open, which set a wind chime tinkling lightly. "Milady," he joked.

Amrita felt her face heat up at both the chivalrous act and the fact that she realized she still had her hand resting on Bruce's arm. She hastily removed it, managing despite her embarrassment to dip into a curtsy and joke back, "Why thank you, kind sir," before she scuttled inside, Bruce following behind.

After they were seated and had ordered their food, they began chatting about a variety of things, including a beach trip that Tony had suggested they all go on soon. After that, their topic of conversation switched to Bruce's work with Tony, experimenting with new technology they had ideas for, and despite the fact that she didn't understand half of the terms he used, she smiled at the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his work. After a few minutes of this, he seemed to realize from how little she was contributing to the conversation that he was talking above her comprehension level, reigning his enthusiasm in.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Amrita chuckled. "No, no. It's fine. I didn't want to interrupt with how excited you seemed to be about your work."

Bruce laughed. "Well, thanks for listening to me ramble. Maybe we should stick to non-science-related subjects though, or I might start talking your ear off again."

Amrita found herself touched by the consideration of the man. He truly was a gentleman, and an excellent friend. She realized she wasn't sure what she would have done if they weren't friends. Probably floundered, after finding herself thrown into modern society after years of social isolation. Bruce had given her the extra little push she'd needed to find her place here in the States. She suspected he was the one who had talked Tony into setting her up with that job interview, seeing as the man had despised her before the Chitauri invasion. (Her own fault, really, but she refused not to stand up for herself to others after what she'd gone through.)

Amrita smiled as Bruce started up a new topic of conversation, trying to keep her face from heating up as she realized what seemed now almost painfully obvious.

She liked Bruce Banner.

* * *

"Agent Hill," Nick Fury addressed the woman who approached him from behind, not having to look at her to know who it was that was approaching. "Status report."

"We've finished the analysis on the energy spike we detected when Dr. Banner and Mehrotra fell from the plane, sir," she said. "The energy spike's point of origin was identified as coming from Dr. Mehrotra."

Fury nodded, not looking phased at all. He motioned for her to continue.

Agent Hill faltered momentarily before saying, "Sir, the energy analysis was inconclusive."

Fury's one-eyed gaze finally slid over to the brunette agent.

"I'm sorry, Agent Hill. Did I hear you correctly just now?" he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. "We have the most up-to-date technology on earth, able to identify every kind of energy known to man, capable of even identifying _Asgardian_ energy, and you're saying…we have no clue what kind of energy was being emitted by Dr. Mehrotra?"

Agent Hill swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, sir. That's what I'm saying."

Fury's jaw clenched, and he had to refrain from grinding his teeth in annoyance.

"Get a tail on Mehrotra. I want to know just exactly _what_ we are dealing with."

Agent Hill nodded. "Yes, sir," she said, hurrying off to do just that.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **The plot thickens! Dun dun duhhhh! Hope you're holding on to your seats, kiddies, because in the next couple chapters there are some pretty big reveals, and drama, and action (what!?), and and and I'm too excited for this I need some sleep.

Thanks to all who've read, reviewed, followed, and favorited! Hope you enjoy the chapter!

I don't own, nor am I affiliated with, Marvel and/or The Avengers. All I own is Amrita and my plot for her. I'm not making money off of this, either...phooey.

* * *

A few days after Bruce and Amrita's lunch "date" at the Chinese restaurant, Bruce, Tony, Pepper, and Amrita had all managed to scrabble together a day where they didn't work (or rather, where Tony forced them all not to work so that he could drag them all to the beach because he really wanted to go). They took one of Tony's many fancy cars, chauffeured of course, down to his private beach and took turns changing into their swimsuits in the little tent that Tony had the chauffeur set up for them. When Pepper emerged in her blue bikini, she silently envied the woman; both for her figure, and for her confidence in wearing so little. Amrita had bought an emerald green one-piece, fifties-style swimsuit, as she felt the cut and the ruching along the stomach flattered her figure more than any of the other ones she'd tried on.

Pepper walked over to her with a smile. "Need some sunscreen?" she asked, holding out the bottle to the other woman.

Amrita shook her head. "No thanks. I don't need it. I don't burn."

Pepper raised her eyebrows, seeming to study the paleness of her skin. "Are you sure?"

Amrita smiled. "Quite sure. I've never had a sunburn in my life, and I used to live in India."

Pepper seemed surprised by that, but then her look turned contemplative.

"Does this have anything to do with why you were working with SHIELD?" she asked. Despite that she didn't know the whole story, Tony told her a lot, so she knew that Amrita had been picked up by SHIELD as their Avengers medic of sorts, and that the reason Tony had despised her before had something to do with fire. Tony refused to let the whole story leak and threatened bodily harm to anyone who might tell Pepper as he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of his girlfriend. His ego wouldn't be able to handle it.

Amrita hummed. "In a way. I can't be hurt by fire, or in this case, the sun."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey Firewall, stop trying to steal my date. You've got your own," Tony interrupted, coming up and putting his arm around Pepper's shoulder.

Amrita's face heated up at the connotation. Bruce? Her date? She certainly liked him, but she was pretty sure he didn't feel the same way. Sure, he was really nice to her, but he was just a really nice person in general.

Unfortunately, Tony noticed how red her face must have gotten, and a giant shit-eating grin threatened to take over his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but Pepper tugged his arm to get his attention, sending him a scolding look. "Tony, what did we say about talking," she said.

Tony pouted, but mumbled, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything."

Pepper smiled. "That's right. Now, why don't you come help me put on my sunscreen?" she said with a flirty smile.

Tony perked right up. "I'm your man!" he said, grabbing the sunscreen and heading over to where they'd put their towels down on the sand. Pepper gave a little laugh and followed him, not missing the grateful look Amrita sent her. Pepper gave her a wink and a smile.

'_Talk to him,_' she mouthed, motioning in the direction where Bruce was sitting, putting on his own sunscreen.

Amrita hesitated, biting the inside of her cheek. She felt self-conscious enough with how much skin she was showing, but she wasn't about to hang around Tony and Pepper with their embarrassingly heavy flirting right now, and despite her shyness, she wanted to be around Bruce. She liked spending time with him. It made her feel happy. Making up her mind, she grabbed her beach towel and wrapped it around her waist so her legs were covered before wandering over to where Bruce sat, plunking herself down on the sand beside him.

"Hi," she said lamely.

Bruce smiled, glancing up at her briefly as he rubbed sunscreen onto his shoulder.

"Hi."

There was a beat of silence.

"Did you know that a crab's teeth are in its stomach?"

Bruce laughed. "I see you found the internet again on your phone."

Amrita shrugged. "I figured maybe I shouldn't give up on learning how to use technology just yet, seeing as how it seems to be popping up everywhere."

Bruce grinned. "Well, now that you know how to find the internet, you'll be able to learn how to do just about anything…there are tutorials for just about anything you can think of on there," he said, reaching around his shoulder and trying to get between the shoulder blades.

Amrita watched him struggle for a second, feeling incredibly nervous at the thought she had as she glanced over at Pepper and Tony, as they rubbed lotion on each other's backs. She swallowed thickly, but then decided to throw caution to the wind, speaking before she could even think of what she was about to say.

"Here. Let me help you," she said, holding out her hand for the sunscreen bottle.

Bruce stopped in his efforts, looking at her in surprise. He knew, from how much time they'd spent together, how averse she was to touching people in general. She hadn't so much as touched him once since they had lunch at the Chinese restaurant a week ago, despite that they'd seen each other almost every day since. He smiled at her, happy she was making an effort to make human contact. He had thought that maybe he had gone too far too soon when he had offered his arm to her, that maybe she had felt coerced into touching him and had withdrawn from him a little after that, but he was relieved that she was proving him wrong. He handed her the bottle, shivering a little when she began rubbing the cold lotion onto his back, her touch light and hesitant, but growing more relaxed as she went. When she finished, she handed him back the bottle, and he could see a light blush coloring her cheeks as she pointedly looked anywhere but his face. He held back a laugh, not wanting her to think he was laughing at her expense.

"Are you heading into the water?" he asked instead, choosing a hopefully safe topic.

Amrita smiled a bit, nodding. "Yeah. It's been a while, though. I'll probably stick close to shore. I'm kind of scared if I go too far out that the tide will drag me out to sea," she said, only half joking.

Bruce shrugged. "If it did, I'd just come get you," he said, grinning. "Either that or Tony would get his chauffeur to bring out the speedboat. Or one of them, I should say."

Amrita rolled her eyes. "Honestly, how many vehicles does one man need?" she said, shaking her head at the billionaire's antics.

"With Tony?" Bruce said, raising an eyebrow. "Always at least one more."

Amrita laughed, and Bruce stood up, holding his hand out to her. She stared at it for a moment, but unlike when they'd been in the same situation on the helicarrier less than a month ago, she placed her hand in his, letting him help her up. However, she pressed her lips together when she realized she'd left the towel behind…not that she could've taken it into the water with her, anyway, but she still felt a bit exposed without it.

Bruce's adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, trying not to let his gaze linger on her long, bare legs. Her swimsuit of choice certainly accentuated everything that was positive about her figure, the sweetheart neckline accentuating her otherwise mediocre chest and the straight hem and ruching drawing the eyes to the curve of her hips. He quickly decided it was as good a time as any to cool off.

"Last one in the water has to give Tony a compliment," he said, dashing off.

Amrita squawked in protest. "Hey, no fair!" she said, running after him. They both ran straight into the water, but Amrita shrieked when the cold hit her thighs.

"Shit, that's cold!" Bruce cursed, scrambling back to the beach as Amrita did the same. "Retreat!"

Tony and Pepper were laughing their asses off at the two, causing Amrita to glare at them; mostly at Tony, though.

"Okay, and _whose_ bright idea was it again to go to the beach at mid-morning in May?" she asked rhetorically. "Because I did not sign up for a polar bear plunge."

Tony jumped up and strode over to the two.

"Look, Rita," he said. He'd adopted the nickname after finding out that Fury had started calling her that, and that she wasn't particularly fond of the nickname. Mostly because of the latter, though. "No one forced you to come here. But you came, and you suited up," he said, motioning to her swimsuit, "so…yeah, you kinda did."

Without warning, he scooped her up, throwing her over his shoulder and running into the freezing cold water, laughing as she shrieked and hit his back, yelling to be put down.

"Listen, Rita, shut up for just a second," he muttered just loud enough for her to hear it. He sounded serious, and she went quiet. Tony Stark and serious did not normally go together in a sentence, and when he was serious, it was usually bad.

"Thank you," he said as she was no longer shrieking next to his ear. "Look, you've got a tail."

Amrita, confused, patted the butt of her swimsuit.

"No, I don't."

Tony gave a bark of laughter.

"No, not _that _kind of tail. I mean, someone's following you," he said. "And I've had enough paparazzi stalk me to know that it's not one of them. I think it might be a SHIELD agent, but I'm not sure. Acts like one of them, though."

Amrita's nose scrunched up in confusion. "Why would SHIELD want to follow me around? It's not like I'm doing anything out of the ordinary…"

Tony shrugged, and Amrita swatted his back as his shoulder dug into her stomach.

"Beats me, kid. Maybe they smell something stirring in the Hulk's love life and want to be in the know," he said innocently.

That brought a real wallop. Tony let out an 'oof' as Amrita resumed pounding on his back.

"That's it, Stark. Let me down so I can give you a good kick in the pants!"

"As the lady commands!" he said, tossing her into the waist-deep water. He cackled loudly and dashed back to the shore as she came up, sputtering and shrieking vengeance, wading after him and trying to splash his retreating back to no avail.

* * *

"Director Fury," Agent Hill said, approaching the man as he sorted through a file on his desk. He scooped the papers back up and placed them inside the folder, closing it before he motioned for her to approach.

"There's been another energy spike detected; same unknown components as the spike caused by Dr. Mehrotra, but on a larger scale," she said without preamble.

Fury nodded. "And the doctor?"

"Still has her tail on her. Agent Vale reported no unusual activity when the spike occurred."

Fury's eye narrowed.

"I want a recon team sent to the location of the energy spike. Tell them to take some techs with them. I want that place scoured for any evidence of what might have caused it."

Hill nodded. "Yes, sir."

Fury waved his dismissal, and the female agent strode off to fulfill her assigned task. Fury ran a hand over his face, suddenly feeling exhausted.

_What in the world is happening _this _time?_

* * *

Carl Rowman had a PhD in both astrophysics and mathematics, but staring at his findings after scanning the area his team had set up in, he could not believe the facts that were staring him straight in his face.

"Uh…Agent Hill?" he called. "I think you'll want to see this…"

The stoic agent walked over, looking over his shoulder at the screen of his laptop. She quickly scanned the findings there, then transferred her stare to him.

"Explain," she demanded.

"Um. Uh," Carl stammered, nervous at being put on the spot. "Ma'am, it appears to b-be…an interdimensional rift," he managed to get out despite her all but breathing down his neck.

The agent raised her eyebrows at the scientist, assessing whether he was lying or not. She realized that despite the nervous sweat and the way he kept chewing on his lip, he was telling what he absolutely believed to be the truth. She pursed her lips.

"How is that possible? I thought despite the math proving interdimensional rifts to be possible, they're supposed to be untraceable. Yet here we are," she said, motioning to the rest of the team that they had been sent with. "We traced it."

Carl raised his hand after she said it was untraceable, waiting for her to finish speaking. When she noticed and nodded for him to do so, he dropped his hand back to his lap, clenching it into a fist.

"What we traced, I don't think it was the rift itself."

Agent Hill bristled.

"Why do I have a feeling I'm not going to like what you're about to tell me, Dr. Rowman?" she barked.

Carl sighed.

"Because…I believe that something came through the rift."

Hill growled. "Get me Fury on the comm," she barked at another team member before fixing her glare on Rowman again. "And you, start working on a tracking algorithm. We need to find whatever it is that came through that rift."

* * *

Amrita was exhausted from all the shenanigans that had happened with their little beach party. Tony had pushed his extravagance to the extreme by getting a five-star meal delivered to the beach, furniture included, so that they could wine and dine in their bathing suits. (In other words, so he could keep checking Pepper out throughout the whole meal. It would have put her off her food if the crab hadn't been _so_ mouth-wateringly delicious.) Bruce just rolled his eyes at the billionaire's antics. Amrita had to try her hardest to keep from looking at him, lest she turn beet red in the face. For a lab geek, he was in surprisingly good shape, and the fact that she had all but felt up his back earlier did not help her in the embarrassment department. She had already pushed her daily quota for social interaction way past its limits, and she was feeling mentally and emotionally drained from the day out. She was just about ready to recharge with a nice long nap before supper, as she stepped out of her sandals and placed her beach bag beside them, pausing to relock the door. She stepped into the living room and was just about to toss her keys on the coffee table when she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Hey, doc," Natasha said, sitting in her rocking chair in full Black Widow attire, looking completely at home. "Good day at the beach?"

Amrita gave an exasperated sigh.

"I was informed there might be a SHIELD agent following me, but I don't think I was supposed to be aware of them; it kind of contradicts the whole 'see and don't be seen' thing stalkers have going on," she said.

"Oh, I'm not the agent that's tailing you. That's someone else," Natasha said, waving her hand dismissively. "I'm just in town running some errands, and Director Fury asked me to come and have a little chat with you about some things." She nodded at the sofa. "Have a seat."

Amrita was irked by the way the agent seemed to have taken over her home, but she took a deep breath, counting to ten in her head to calm herself down. She hadn't had any issues with the female agent in their interactions before, and she figured this was just another facet of her personality that she hadn't encountered yet. She was a professional, and she had to take charge of any situation, including one-on-one encounters with comrades (was that what they were?) like this. She perched herself on the edge of the sofa, not getting comfortable. She didn't feel as though she _should_ get comfortable, if SHIELD was sending an agent in to interrogate her. It just felt…off.

"SHIELD knows something happened to you when you and Dr. Banner fell from the helicarrier," Natasha said, not bothering to mince words.

Amrita could feel the adrenaline kick in as she realized what Natasha was talking about, but rather than freezing up as most people would in a potentially risky situation, she relaxed, mirroring Natasha's position as she sank deeper into the couch, placing an arm on the armrest and crossing her legs.

"And how would SHIELD come to the conclusion that something happened?" Amrita asked smoothly, tilting her head to the side, honestly curious to know the answer to her question.

Natasha gave her an amused look.

"It's not a secret, doctor. Their scanners picked up an unidentifiable energy reading, a kind of energy that even the most advanced systems had never encountered before. Needless to say, they feel both curious and threatened."

Amrita raised her eyebrows.

"I don't know what to say, Natasha," she said. "What happened was…not something I recall ever happening before, nor do I believe it's something that will ever happen again." She pursed her lips. "It wasn't…dangerous, just…odd."

Natasha shifted, uncrossing her legs and sitting forward in her seat, her expression serious.

"Amrita, I need to know what happened when you fell from the helicarrier," she said. It wasn't a request; it was an order. Amrita bristled.

"Despite that I'm the one that it happened to, I'm not the one that you should ask," she said. "All I know is that…_something_ changed. And…" she looked into the reflective surface of the coffee table, not really seeing it as her mind's eye pictured what she had seen on her descent; the multicolored wings that had engulfed her arms. "…I had wings," she finished quietly. She straightened up, pulling herself back from the memory and looking Natasha in the eye.

"You should ask Thor. He was there when it happened."

"Thor is in Asgard. We have no way of asking him," Natasha deadpanned.

Amrita shrugged.

"Not my problem," she said. "Now, would you like tea before you go and finish the rest of your errands, or…?" she trailed off.

Natasha frowned at the obvious dismissal, but stood up anyways.

"No thanks, doc," she said, heading for the door. "We'll be in touch, though. See you around." She waved over her shoulder without looking back.

Amrita glared at the door as it shut behind the redheaded agent.

"Right," she muttered to herself, feeling pissed off at the agent's—and SHIELD's—obvious distrust despite the fact that she hadn't given them any reason to be that way towards her. "Like you're not watching my every move already…"


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **This chapter is too long. Just. Too long. But I had to cram it all in here or my chapter outline would go all wonky and I'm stubborn and didn't want to deal with that. Haha. So y'all get an extra long chapter today. Hooray.

Thanks to all who've read, reviewed, followed, and favorited so far. You're beautiful. Yes, you. :)

(Speaking of which, do y'all realize this story already has almost 11,000 views!? I AM AMAZE)

I don't own, nor am I affiliated with, Marvel and/or The Avengers. I'm not making money off this story. All I own is Amrita (plus a few bit-part OCs) and my plot for her.

* * *

Amrita was almost done her shift at the hospital, and she couldn't have been happier to have it be over. Due to her extensive medical knowledge (and the falsely-dated papers she had to prove it), she had a rotating position and could be sent to whatever ward had the greatest need that day. Unfortunately, she had been sent to pediatrics that day, and she had been put through the emotional wringer, so to speak. Despite that she honestly preferred children over adults on any given day, she could not stand pediatric medicine. It was so hard for her to see the difficulties that many of the children had, dealing with illnesses and conditions that even adults could barely cope with most days. She was watching the clock as she finished the last of her patient rounds for the day and wrote a new prescription for the young girl. She looked happy, but so very tired. She gave the girl what she hoped was an encouraging smile and a sticker from the roll she had been carrying around with her all day, wishing her a good evening as she left her in the care of an older, kindly nurse. She signed off the paperwork and dropped it off at the desk, all but dashing out of the ward with a quick farewell to the rest of the staff as the clock struck the hour.

_Home time,_ she thought with no small amount of relief. She quickly changed out of her scrubs and lab coat into her street attire. Pepper had talked her into buying more western-style clothes, but she still didn't feel very comfortable with the tight jeans that so many women seemed to be wearing around the city, so she had a beaded off-white t-shirt and a navy blue maxi skirt with a pair of leather sandals. She let her hair down from the sensible bun she had swept it into for her shift, running her hands through her now wavy hair and frowning in the change room mirror, pulling a plain black hairband from the tote bag she had tossed her scrubs into to pull back the few strands of hair that wanted to fall in her face. Relatively satisfied, she exited the change room, making a bee line for the front entrance of the hospital when she was stopped by a hand on her arm. She jerked at the sudden contact, nearly giving herself whiplash as she whipped her head around to see who it was that had grabbed her, eyes wide.

"Sorry," Bruce said quickly, taking his hand off her arm and holding his hands up in surrender. "Sorry. Lapse of judgment."

Amrita breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She didn't know who she thought it might have been, but Bruce had scared the daylights out of her. She had been so focused on getting out the door that she hadn't even noticed him there. She shook her head.

"No, it's okay. I just didn't notice you there. What are you doing here, anyway? Did you miss my face that much?" she said jokingly, despite the fact that she kind of hoped he had.

Bruce chuckled. "No, I just figured I'd come pick you up before we go out." He took note of the blank look on her face. "It's Tuesday," he prompted, but just got an eyebrow raised at him. He raised one of his own right back at her. "We agreed last week that we'd make Tuesday grocery day. Remember?"

"Ohhh, _right,_" she said, a look of understanding dawning on her face. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go," she said, offering him her arm. It had sort of become a 'thing' for them over the past week, ever since the day of the beach party. Amrita found it most amusing, though, when Bruce was the one tucking his hand in her arm; mostly because of the role reversal, but also because it sent little tingles up her arm at the touch, when she was wearing short sleeves like today.

"Hey, I found a good Asian foods store the other day, but we might have to take the bus. It's a little far to walk from here," he said, pointing at the bus stop just down the block as they exited the building.

Amrita gave a little shrug. "Alright. You'll have to pay for the tickets though, I still have a hard time with those machines they have for the coins…" She grimaced at the memory of the last time she'd tried to use it. She'd held up the line of people trying to get on the bus for almost two minutes, and finally the driver had snatched her coins and put them in the machine himself, slapping the ticket in her hand with a nasty glare. Needless to say, she hadn't ridden the bus since without someone there to help her with the ticket dispenser.

Bruce chuckled, remembering the story from when she'd told him and how flustered she'd been about it all. He was just about to remark on it when a skateboarder went zipping past them on the sidewalk, knocking Amrita down before Bruce could react.

"Hey! Slow down, jackass!" he yelled, feeling the anger bloom in his chest. He paused, taking a few deep breaths as he felt the ever-lingering presence of the Hulk stirring at the emotion. When he felt he had a handle on it, he crouched down beside Amrita on the sidewalk, examining her as she propped herself up on her elbows. "You alright?" he asked, concerned despite himself.

Amrita gave him a disgruntled look. "Yeah, nothing hurt but my pride," she said, accepting the hand he offered her to help her to her feet. He bristled when he realized her right arm was skinned, having left a little blood on the sidewalk but already visibly healing. He positioned her so that the back of her arm was pressed against his (thankfully black) shirt so that no one would be able to see it healing. She gave him a confused look, and he pressed his lips together.

"You're hurt," he muttered by explanation, and her eyes lit up with understanding as she nodded.

"Thanks," she mumbled in response. He led her the last few steps to the bus stop, discretely checking her arm as they waited for the bus to pull up. It had already fully healed, having been just a case of the skin being torn up a bit. Nevertheless, he kept her arm pressed against his sweater as the bus pulled up and they boarded, Bruce putting the change into the ticket machine and handing Amrita hers.

There wasn't much room in the bus. Bruce only found two seats next to a middle-aged businessman who looked rather irate. Car trouble, probably, he thought. The man looked greatly displeased with the people he was surrounded by, as though he thought they might be diseased and he could catch something just by riding on the same bus as them. Bruce didn't like the look about him, but guided Amrita to the only empty seats anyway, letting her slip in first so she could have the window seat away from the angry man.

"Do you really need to sit there?" the man snapped. "I'm supposed to be carpooling with two other men, and since my car died, they'll need someplace to sit once they board. I'm sure you can find someplace else."

Amrita's eyes sparked with righteous indignation, and Bruce gave her an amused look, realizing he didn't even need to deal with the man himself as he settled into the seat between Amrita and the businessman, settling in to watch the carnage.

"Really? I'm surprised anyone else can even fit in this bus with the gigantic attitude you're toting around," she said, cutting him off as his face turned red and he opened his mouth to retort. "If anyone should be getting up, it's you. Do you realize how many more people there are that will be boarding this bus? You're a perfectly able-bodied young man, do you expect people will take kindly to you and your likely similarly able colleagues taking seats that could be given to the elderly or new mothers?" she hissed. "Your type are the worst. You feel the world owes you something. Well guess what? _It doesn't._ So take your head out of your ass so you can at least see the sunshine."

The man clenched his jaw and got up, going to the very front of the bus and standing there. Bruce turned to her and gave her a slow clap, shaking his head in amusement.

"Remind me never to piss you off," he said. "You can be pretty intimidating when you're angry."

Amrita raised an eyebrow with a cheeky grin. "I'd say the same to you, but I don't think you'd appreciate it very much," she joked.

Bruce laughed. "No, you have a point there," he said, settling into an easy conversation with her as the bus rolled on.

* * *

"Somehow I'm just not sure you have room for all of this food in your entire house, let alone your kitchen," Bruce said as they trudged into Amrita's house, each of them carrying four bags that were just about bursting at the seams with food.

Amrita scoffed. "You underestimate my puzzle-solving abilities. I could stack this all to fit perfectly in my fridge if I needed to," she said, placing her bags on the counter and pulling some items out, "but thankfully, most of it will go in the cupboards, which have a lot more room than the fridge."

"Mm-hmm," Bruce hummed in agreement, before changing topic. "So now that we're not in public, can I ask you something that's been on my mind all day?"

Amrita raised her eyebrows at him. "Sure. Shoot."

"Bang," he drawled, grinning at the stink-eye she gave him for the lame joke. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway." He cleared his throat, leaning against the counter, one hand shoved in his pants pocket. "What all abilities do you have?"

Amrita tried to smoothly deflect the question. "I thought I answered that once before. Bruce, did you hit your head while working with Tony?" she said teasingly.

Bruce shrugged. "That's besides the point. And yeah, I thought you had too, until I thought about the conversation we had before. You never really answered my question, did you?"

There was silence. Amrita would not lie to him, despite not wanting to tell him the full truth.

"That's what I thought. You see, you deflected the question last time, too. Asked me what I'd heard and said you'd tell me whether it was true or not. But you never really told me what abilities you have." He fixed her with a disapproving look.

Amrita stopped unpacking the groceries and sighed before turning to fully face him.

"Alright. Let's sit down, then."

The two of them moved to the living room, and Amrita sat, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees as she spoke, not looking at Bruce. She stared pointedly at the reflective surface of the coffee table as she slowly explained her abilities—the healing factor; the pyrokinesis; the strange incident when she and Bruce had fallen from the helicarrier that she still didn't understand; and finally…the regeneration.

Bruce was silent for a long moment, and when she finally dared to glance over at him, she found him leaned back in his chair, one arm folded tightly across his chest and the other over his mouth as he stared at her, brow furrowed, as though he was concerned or upset. She couldn't tell which. He removed his hand from over his mouth and crossed that arm over his chest along with the other one.

"So…how long have you been alive for, then?" he asked carefully, as though he didn't really want to know the answer. He probably didn't, she thought. After all, who would want to find out that their good friend was some sort of inhuman super-being who'd been alive for thousands of years, if not more?

"I don't know," she said. "I've read ancient Egyptian texts and gotten flashbacks, though, so I'm going to go ahead and say it's been a while," she drawled sarcastically.

Bruce leaned forward, arms resting on his legs and hands clasped together between his knees, lips pursed.

"Do you have any idea what you are?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested and—concerned? She didn't know why he would be. She was a centuries-old being that had essentially lied to him by not telling him about herself. The scientist had enough drama and weirdness in his life without her adding her own to the pile. She would've thought he would run away at the first sign of abnormality. She wouldn't have blamed him if he had, and, she reminded herself, he might still yet.

Amrita hesitated. "I'm…not sure yet," she said. "I've been…wanting to look into it, though. I only found a clue to whatever it might be recently, though." She pressed her lips together, unsure if she should tell him about what had happened on the helicarrier.

Bruce, however, was relentless. "And that would be…?" he pressed.

Amrita stared at him for a moment before caving.

"When Loki was brought onto the helicarrier…he got in my head," she admitted, looking at the floor, not wanting to see the betrayal on Bruce's face at the new revelation.

"_What?_" he hissed, sounding upset, but she refused to look up and confirm it. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have—"

"Could've what? Helped?" she said flatly. "I'm sorry, Bruce, but even the Hulk can't fix a problem of the mind. It's too delicate a thing," she said bluntly. "And besides, I had the situation under control. I pushed him out."

"You pushed him—" Bruce made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, standing up and pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. "_Jesus,_ woman. You realize how dangerous that guy is? Do you—do you realize you were probably antagonizing him? From what I hear, he doesn't exactly take kindly to that kind of thing. If he ever manages to get out of Asgard, he might come after you!" He said, genuinely upset.

Amrita was taken aback that Bruce was so emotional over the fact that she had thwarted Loki. Hadn't they all done that when they'd defeated him a month before, anyway? She stood up, placing a hand on Bruce's shoulder, trying to focus on transferring soothing energy to him.

"Bruce," she said firmly. "Calm down. I'm fine. Look, even if he does come after me, I'm not the only Avenger around, right?" she said, trying to convey the message that she trusted him and the rest of the team to have her back if it came to that. "Besides, for just being the team medic, I'm surprisingly tough." She smiled.

Bruce took a deep breath, closing his eyes and seeming to sway a little. She put a halt to the energy transfer, and he opened his eyes again, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Did you do something just there?" he asked. "All of a sudden, I just felt really…I dunno. Mellow."

Amrita gave him a slight smile. "Energy transfer. Same concept as when I heal, just with emotional effects rather than physical."

Bruce nodded. "Yeah. Alright. It was nice, but…don't do that again," he said, placing his hand on hers where it rested on his shoulder and gently removing it. "It's a nice sentiment, but unless you see me turn green…let me control it myself, okay?"

Amrita blinked, a bit surprised at his reaction, but nodded. She wasn't sure why, but she'd thought that perhaps he would be glad to find that she could help him control himself. She hadn't even considered that he might prefer to control it himself. She mentally kicked herself. Of course he would want to. It was a basic human thing; everyone liked to feel like they were in control of themselves, even when they weren't. That was why having an unwanted reaction to things like Bruce's Hulk side reacted to anger could be such a frightening thing. It was the loss of control more than anything that tended to scare them.

Amrita cleared her throat, embarrassed at what she'd done. Desperate to clear the air, she wracked her mind for a topic that might be of interest to the scientist.

"So…that clue I said I'd found earlier," she said, starting up a little awkwardly. "Uh, it happened when Loki contacted me."

Bruce caught her eye, and despite the fact that he bristled at the mention of Loki again, he nodded, motioning for her to continue.

Amrita swallowed. "He…he called me Garuda," she said. "And it felt…familiar. I believe it used to be my name, before I became Amrita."

"Garuda…?" he muttered, placing a hand over his mouth, brow furrowed in thought. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

Amrita's eyes widened. "It does?" she asked cautiously, not wanting to let herself have any false hope. After all, she was so old, and Bruce was just a rather intelligent human with a rather unfortunate condition.

"Yeah," he said, seeming deep in thought when his phone suddenly started ringing loudly, startling them both. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment before drawing it out. "Hello?"

There was someone speaking on the other line, but Amrita couldn't hear it. As they spoke, Bruce covered the mouth of the phone and mouthed 'it's Tony'.

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay, alright. Just don't test drive it before I get there to check the specs. I'll be right there," Bruce said, hanging up the phone and giving Amrita an apologetic look. "Sorry. Tony wants to test-drive his latest suit and I have to go make sure he doesn't end up blasting a hole in his foot or something equally idiotic." He smiled wryly. "Um…I'll see if I can do some research on your 'clue' before I see you next, okay?" he said, gaze softening as he looked at her.

She nodded, and as he turned to leave, she panicked, fearing that if he left without her saying something, he wouldn't come back after all the gritty truths that had been revealed about her that day. Acting rashly, she reached out and grabbed his hand, blushing furiously when he stopped and looked back at her, surprised.

"Um. Uh," she stammered, trying to put the words together that she wanted to say. "I just, uh…wanted to say t-thanks…for everything you've done for me," she said, staring at Bruce's feet. "So…thank you, Bruce. It means a lot to me."

Bruce smiled, squeezing her hand.

"No problem," he said. "What're friends for?"

With that, he slipped his hand out of hers and headed for the door. Amrita couldn't tell if she was just imagining it, but she could've sworn she saw the hint of a blush on Bruce's cheeks, too.

* * *

Bruce had been looking over the specs for Tony's latest Iron Man suit for the past twenty minutes, and none of it had sunk in. His mind kept wandering off, and he didn't want to admit to himself where it kept wandering off to.

"Bruce, come on. Hop to it. I'd say I'm sweating bullets in here, but the A/C in this thing is keeping it as fresh as a cool spring day," Tony said airily from inside the suit that he'd already donned in anticipation of field-testing it, just the mask part off. "Seriously, though, where's your brain at, because it certainly isn't in here," he said, twirling his finger in the direction of his head.

Bruce gave an aggravated sigh, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes.

"Sorry, Tony, I'm just not able to focus right now," he said, standing up abruptly. "I need some air."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa," Tony said, using the boosters on the suit to propel him in between the scientist and the exit. "Hey, we're on the money," he said to himself before addressing Bruce once more. "Does your inability to focus happen to have anything to do with the fact that you were once again visiting a certain hotheaded medic before you came here?" he said, looking as though he already knew the answer to the question. (Which, Bruce realized, he probably did, knowing Tony.)

Bruce gave his friend a disgruntled look. "I thought we had an agreement about not tracking the GPS in my phone, Tony," he said warningly.

"We do," Tony said innocently. "It's not my fault you're boringly predictable. And by the way, I'm hurt that you would think I would track you like that."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "That's because you _have,_ and I know that you would again if you were either bored or curious enough to," he said blandly.

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, you're probably right. But that's not the point. The point is," he said, "that you're trying to distract me from the fact that you were at Rita's place and now you can't focus. So what's the deal? Did you two finally pucker up and things got awkward?" He said, clapping a metal-clad hand on the other man's shoulder and just about sending him stumbling. He glared at his hand. "Sorry. Slipped my mind," he said.

Bruce frowned. "We did not kiss," he said. "Just…there were some things she told me about herself that were…really surprising, and kind of unbelievable," he muttered, quietly adding, "And which make things a lot more complicated."

Tony raised his eyebrows, not seeming surprised. "Oh, you mean the things about how she's practically immortal and SHIELD is looking into the idea of her not being from earth?"

Bruce looked at him, shocked, and not just a little upset.

"How the _hell_ do you know that?" he cried, his hands flying into his hair and pulling at it. "And furthermore, if you knew I was interested in Amrita, why the hell didn't you _tell me_ you knew that before I got in too deep!"

Tony stared at him for a moment before smiling.

"I'm proud of you, buddy. Always knew you'd find yourself a girl," he said.

Bruce ground his teeth together. "Not the focus here, Tony."

"Sorry," Tony said, only sounding half-sincere. "I found the files when I hacked SHIELD's database on the helicarrier. Well, except for the one that I found a few days ago about them being suspicious of Rita's origin." Bruce gave him a look. "What? You were out with Rita and Pepper was at work. You know how I get when I'm bored and there's no one to talk to."

Bruce gave an aggravated sigh, not even bothering to comment.

"So did she tell you anything that would point you in the direction of where she comes from? I'd personally find it highly amusing if we were able to crack the case before SHIELD does," Tony said, disengaging himself from the suit seeing as Bruce didn't seem about to help him navigate the test-drive. He pulled up a holographic computer screen and looked over at Bruce expectantly, waiting for something to search for.

"Um…there was one thing," Bruce said, massaging his temples, feeling a headache coming on from all the things he was worrying over. He had come to the conclusion over the past couple weeks that he liked Amrita, thinking that he might be able to see them becoming something more than friends, if her behavior around him was any indicator, but the fact that she was apparently immortal was something he was having trouble wrapping his mind around. How could she possibly like him if she had been around for…however long she had been? How would that affect them? He was human; he would eventually grow old and die. How would he expect her to stick with him through all that? She would be forever the young woman he knew now, never aging. It was doomed to fail before it even began.

"She said she thinks her name used to be Garuda."

"Uh-huh," Tony said, looking nonplussed. "And how do you spell that."

Bruce gave him an irritated look, his growing headache not helping his mood any. "I don't know. Sound it out!"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Fine, princess. Don't get your bloomers in a bunch." Tony started typing away at the screen, sifting through information. Bruce sat down at the work table, putting his head down on his arms. The sudden silence in the lab was peaceful, but it did nothing to put his worries to rest.

"Uh…Bruce, buddy?" Tony said, catching his attention. "I don't think you want to see this, but, uh…I think you should see this."

Bruce looked over at Tony, standing up with a sense of unease as he strode over and read what he had pulled up on his screen. He read it a second time. And a third. He swore violently, picking up the glass of water that was sitting on the table and throwing it, watching it shatter against the far wall with a dim sense of satisfaction as he sank to the ground, placing his head in his hands.

"Yeah, I hear you buddy," Tony said, awkwardly patting the scientist's shoulder. "Just let it all out."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Wheee! New chapter! Thank you everyone who has supported this story, be it through reading, reviewing, following, or favoriting. :) Also, I'm just curious to know: Did anyone guess Amrita's identity before it was revealed (by just recognizing her alternate name, I mean)? I want to know! Haha.

Also, if anyone is familiar with the mythology her character is based on...I will point out that I have used a fair amount of creative license with changing the details of the mythology. Don't hurt meeee.

As always, me no own; you no sue.

(Also just a note...there will only be four more chapters after this, according to my chapter outlines. Again...don't hurt meeee!)

* * *

Amrita was sitting on the beach, arms wrapped around herself as she stared at the waves constantly rolling in. It was rare for her to find quiet time to herself these days. Well, usually it was. She hadn't really realized just how much time she and Bruce had been spending together up until then, but it had been three days now since she had spilled her secrets to Bruce, and she hadn't seen hide nor hair of him since. She had even gone so far as to contact Tony earlier that day, asking him if Bruce was alright, worried that maybe he hadn't been taking proper care of himself and ended up collapsing or something of the sort, but Tony had assured her that the man was fine and was just really swamped with some work that he had given him. Amrita had gotten mad and told him to lay off the poor man, but Tony had just wished her a pleasant day and hung up in the middle of her rant. She frowned. She swore that man was the one person that could raise her blood pressure to unseen heights.

Amrita sighed, resting her head on her knees. At least Tony wasn't a complete ass all the time. After all, it was his beach she was sitting on. He'd been gracious enough to offer her use of his private beach whenever she wanted. It was nice on a day like today, she thought, when she needed to get out of the house. She felt like she was going stir-crazy without anything to do, alone at home. If she had Bruce…

She shook her head at the thought, but couldn't help but wallow in her own misery at the thought. She knew that telling Bruce about herself would result in this. He'd gotten scared, or upset at the truths he'd been told. Either way, the end result was the same. He was gone, she thought resignedly. He didn't want anything more to do with her. She just wished he'd told her straight out instead of leaving her with this tentative hope that maybe, just maybe, he was just busy looking for clues on her identity and was going to come back to her once he knew something.

Amrita closed her eyes, but tensed. She felt like something was…off. She frowned, lifting her head and looking around, not seeing anything. She felt nervous all of a sudden, though, as if she shouldn't be there. She quickly grabbed her sandals that she had taken off and shoved her feet back into them, heading back towards the bustle of the city streets. She bumped into someone, though, ending up on her butt in the sand once more.

"Greeting-_sss_, Garuda."

Amrita's eyes snapped up to the newcomer at the name, studying them. They appeared female, tall and lithe, but she wasn't sure they were human. Their skin was ashen and scaly, as though they had some sort of illness or condition. She had a feeling it wasn't just a skin defect though. Their dark brown hair had an almost greenish tinge to it, and their eyes were yellow, with slit pupils.

_Like a snake,_ she thought to herself.

"Oh, how envious my brethren will be to know that I was the first to find the mighty Garuda…trapped away in a human body," the woman leered, stepping closer to Amrita and bending over her, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look her in the eye as her heart beat erratically with fear and adrenaline. "The mighty betrayer, oh how far you have fallen…"

"And just who do you think you are?" Amrita snapped, temper flaring at how this woman—snake—_thing_ thought she could manhandle her and get away with it. She smacked the woman's hand away and scrambled backwards, standing up and squaring her shoulders in defiance. It didn't matter that she was several inches shorter than the scaly woman, she refused to be pushed around.

"Oh, but my dear, you have persecuted me and my brethren for so long. Surely you should be able to recognize one of my kind, even with the frivolous appearance that being in this realm lends us," the woman said, seeming as though she would start salivating if she got any more excited than she already was. "Or perhaps…you need a display of my true power as a reminder!"

The woman's form blurred, as though the air around her was rippling with heat, and she shifted into something much larger than she was before, her dark green and yellow serpentine body a sickly contrast to her still humanoid face and scraggly, dark hair.

"You are weak in this realm, Garuda," she hissed. "You have forgotten how to use your powers, and I will take advantage of that and end you and your persecution of us!"

Amrita had frozen at the appearance of the serpent's true form. A name had flitted through her head at the sight: _Naga._ She knew she must have encountered them before at some point, but she could not remember when. Perhaps it had been before she arrived on earth, then, from how the naga spoke about her. It made it sound as though she had come from a different realm; perhaps the same one the naga had come from. It would explain this one's familiarity with her. It made it sound as though she and the naga were old archnemeses, but she could not remember what qualm she might have with them.

The one thing she knew, however, was that her veins turned to fire at the sight of the serpent.

It was as though rage burned her to the very core at the idea of the naga's very existence. _They should not live, _she thought. _After all they have done, they do not deserve to live._

She felt the change without fully acknowledging it. The wings sprouted from her shoulders, caressing her arms. Her bones seemed to become thinner but denser, stretching out as she grew taller, to almost the same height as the naga. She could feel the bones of her face change, her features becoming sharper, more intense. Her hair became feathers; her body covered in molten gold, like an armor light enough to keep her movement free and fast.

The naga's eyes widened.

"No," she breathed. "How are you able to use your powers still? You have been trapped here for thousands of years!" The naga shrieked. "Never mind—I will end you and bring glory to my brethren!"

The naga charged at her, its writhing motion seemingly unpredictable, but a pattern formed in her mind as she watched, waiting for it to come to her rather than meeting it halfway. The moment the naga reached her, its head rushing forth to latch its vicious fangs into her flesh, she launched herself to the side, sweeping in behind its head and reaching her long, taloned fingers to grasp the naga by the hair, holding its head still as she plunged her other hand into its skull with practiced ease, the naga's shriek cutting short as its body gave one final spasm and it fell limp on her hand. Amrita came back to herself as she realized what she had just done, and that her hand was currently squelching in the being's brain matter. She jerked her hand back, wiping it hastily in the sand as she scrambled away from the macabre scene. She felt herself change back into her human form, staring shell-shocked at what she'd done.

Amrita was not unfamiliar with the sight of death, even violent death. In her past life, she had been an army doctor, and had seen such sights as soldiers with blasted-off limbs, bodies mangled by barbed wire or torture devices; she had seen more than she wanted to ever see again. But seeing what had happened by someone else's hand, and having done something so atrocious with her own… They were completely different things.

Amrita felt the panicked tears streaming down her cheeks as she began to hiccup loudly. She needed to get out of there. She needed to tell someone what had happened. She had just killed someone. Who cared if they weren't human? She had killed someone. And the scariest part was, if she'd been given the chance to relive what had just happened…_she knew she would have done it again._

Amrita ran. She didn't even think about where she was going until she found herself staring up at the large, towering building that was Stark Tower. She reached out to press the intercom button, when she realized her right hand still had blood on it. She clenched her shaking hand and pressed the button with her elbow instead.

"_How may I help you, Miss Mehrotra?_" The voice of Tony's artificial intelligence system came over the intercom. Jeeves? Jarvis? Something like that, she thought dimly.

"Hi. Is Bruce in?" she said, her voice cracking. She paused, thinking better of asking for Bruce. "Sorry, no. Scratch that. Is Pepper in?"

"_Miss Potts is currently away on business. Mister Banner, however, is currently in. Shall I let him know you're here?_"

"Please," she said, leaning against the glass double doors before sliding down them, burying her head in her hands. She sat there, shuddering, faintly aware of the fact that it was raining, the cold drops stinging her usually warm skin. She didn't want to raise her temperature back up, though. She wanted to feel miserable. She _deserved_ to feel miserable. That woman hadn't deserved to die. She had attacked Amrita though, and that had triggered a transformation and some sort of frightening bloodlust that she wasn't even aware she had in her. She was scared, and she didn't want to be alone right now. She needed help. And of course, despite that Bruce had been avoiding her the past couple days, he was the first person she'd thought of when she realized that.

The glass door shifted behind her, and she scrambled forward, lurching up on her feet.

"Amrita?" Bruce asked, concerned. "What are you doing here? What's wrong?" His eyes dipped down to her bloody hand, and he looked alarmed. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, her eyes sore from all the crying as hot tears still leaked from her eyes.

"I'm fine," she croaked unconvincingly. "Bruce. I need your help."

"Okay, well come inside. It's freezing out here," he said, ushering her into the building and sitting her down in the kitchen, grabbing her a large, fluffy towel from the linen closet and placing it around her shoulders. She mumbled her thanks, thankful it was a black towel as she vigorously scrubbed her bloody hand clean on it.

"What happened to you?" Bruce asked, sitting next to her at the island counter. When she just continued scrubbing her hand on the towel, he grabbed her hand, gripping it tight so she couldn't continue rubbing it raw, seeing how red she'd made it already. He frowned at her bloodshot eyes and the tear tracks on her cheeks. She was a mess. "Amrita, I want to help you, but you have to talk to me before I can do that."

Amrita bit her lip before the words came pouring from her mouth; about the naga, about her transformation for the second time, about the rage…about how she had killed the naga. Her tears came again hot and fresh, and the hiccupping sobs wracked her body as Bruce stepped towards her, tentatively wrapping her in a comforting embrace. She clung to him as though he were a lifeline, and he let her soak his shirt with tears and snot, not uttering a complaint despite his fleeting grimace at the sensation. When her sobs quieted, he carefully pried himself from her grip, grabbing a box of tissues and handing them to her. She thanked him hoarsely. He studied her for a moment, letting the new, but not altogether unreasonable (given what he had discovered three nights ago), information he had just been handed.

"Amrita," he said, one arm crossed tightly over his chest and his other hand propping his chin up. He sighed when she looked up at him with her red eyes. He wasn't sure if he could handle it if she started crying again. He wasn't good with crying people to begin with, but it was worse with her because of how he felt about her. He was loathe to admit that being away from her while he was trying to sort out how to deal with the new revelations about her existence had only made him want to be with her more.

_Damn the consequences,_ he thought. _She deserves to know._

"I found some information about you over the past couple days," he said.

He hated the hopeful look she gave him when he told her that. Hated it because he knew what he had to tell her wasn't nearly enough, nor was it the kind of thing she'd want to hear.

"And?" she said eagerly, desperately latching onto the change of topic. She needed to forget about what had just happened on the beach, and this, she thought, would help her do so.

"How familiar are you with Hindu mythology?" Bruce asked, hoping he wouldn't have to explain it all.

Amrita blinked, confused as to where the conversation was going. "Well, there's Brahma the Creator, who created the universe; there's Vishnu the Preserver, who upholds the cosmic order; there's Shiva…"

"…That's okay, that's good," he interrupted, not wanting her to go on forever. "All you really need to know about is Vishnu."

Amrita raised her eyebrows. "Why Vishnu? What's so special about him?" she asked, but she had a niggling feeling that he was _very_ special. Not just in the mythological sense, either.

"Because," Bruce said, sighing tiredly and running a hand over his face. "The lore says that he had a divine mount called _Garuda_…which, according to the abilities you have and what the texts describe Garuda as being…aside from the fact that the texts say Garuda is male, you pretty much match it to a 'T'."

Amrita sat silently, staring at him for a long, drawn-out moment. When she snapped out of it, though, he watched with a sinking heart as her face shut down, all the emotion draining from it as she adapted the sort of stoic façade that he usually only saw on SHIELD agents like Natasha and Clint.

"Amrita," he said, but she was already standing up, placing her towel over the back of the chair she'd been sitting in and heading for the door.

"I should go," she said without stopping.

"Amrita, wait!" He said, reaching out towards her but not moving to stop her as she stepped out. His hand hovered for a moment before he clenched his fist, bringing it back to his side with a grimace. He turned and kicked the chair, letting a bit of his anger go with the action.

"_Damn it,_" he cursed under his breath, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

This was why he never let himself get romantically involved. It just ended in complication. The only difference was, this time, it was _her_ life that was causing the complications.

* * *

Amrita strode quickly down the sidewalk away from Stark Tower. She didn't know how Bruce expected her to believe him. I mean, come on. _Her?_ A divine being from mythology? It just didn't make sense!

But, no. That was what scared her. Because it actually _did _make sense.

_Too much sense,_ she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was like a slow building sense of dread that she had discovered the truth.

A hand caught her wrist, jerking her out of her thoughts. She reacted violently, sending a burst of heat to the area where her wrist was being held. She heard her attacker hiss in pain as they hastily dropped the offending limb, and she whirled around, aiming a punch at her attacker. They threw up an 'x' block with their arms, efficiently stopping the assault and making Amrita pause long enough to see just who it was that had grabbed her.

"Natasha?" she said, confused at the redhead's presence, and yet knowing it had something to do with SHIELD. They must still be tracking her, she thought, and when she realized just what Natasha must be here to confront her about, she felt like she was going to be sick. They knew she had just killed someone. She was a murderer now. SHIELD was going to take her prisoner, her mind jumped to the conclusion. She grimaced, holding her wrists out to the redhead.

Natasha looked at her hands before looking back up at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Is there a reason you're holding out your hands, doc?" she asked. "Because SHIELD doesn't pay its employees unless they're actually on the clock."

Amrita stared at her dumbly.

"I thought you were here about the beach…incident," she said delicately, not wanting to call it what it really was. She felt cowardly about it, but she couldn't bring herself to face what she'd done just yet. She needed time to cope with it.

Natasha inclined her head.

"Somewhat," she said. "But moreso, I'm here about what I heard you and Dr. Banner discussing at Stark Tower."

Amrita bristled. She wasn't ready to face _that,_ yet, either.

"Ah, right," she said with a tight smile. "SHIELD is always listening, and all that jazz. Privacy is a thing of the past, it would seem."

"SHIELD monitors potential threats to public safety," Natasha deadpanned. "Currently they're trying to figure out whether you are or aren't one, and they can't afford to leave you unmonitored while they figure that out."

Amrita gave her a bitter smile. "Well, I guess you've got your answer now," she said. "You don't have to worry about me trying to run off while you take me in for questioning. I've had enough incidents in the past that I know not to do that."

Natasha's eyebrow twitched as though she were going to raise it, but she didn't.

"SHIELD doesn't want to detain you, doc," she said. "They want to help you. That thing you killed on the beach, we tracked it here from an interdimensional rift in northern Somalia; and from what I saw, I'd say it was a lot more of a threat than you are."

Amrita swallowed thickly, feeling the build-up of moisture at the corners of her eyes, blinking back the tears.

"How can you say that?" she whispered. "I _killed_ it. I didn't even think twice about it. How am I not a threat?"

Natasha reached out and smacked her. Not hard, but enough to make the woman's hand shoot up to hold her cheek as she gave the assassin a stunned, bewildered look.

"Stop wallowing," the redhead told her, jutting her chin out in disapproval. "You acted in self-defense. I saw what happened, that thing would've killed you if you hadn't done it first. I know you're a doctor, so you're supposed to do no harm, but in that kind of situation you don't have a choice. You do or you die, and you did the right thing. We don't know that that thing wouldn't have gone on to a killing spree of civilians. It was dangerous, and you took it down." The assassin's eyes softened slightly, and she squeezed Amrita's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "For what it's worth, I prefer you alive to the alternative, doc."

Amrita tried to smile at the unexpected sense of camaraderie she received from the notorious Black Widow, but couldn't quite seem to. She settled for patting the woman's hand before she removed it.

"Thanks, Natasha," she said, before wistfully saying, "You're going to report all this to Fury now, aren't you."

The assassin nodded.

"It's my job," she said. "You understand that, right?"

Amrita shrugged, not looking the other woman in the eye.

"Not like it makes any difference," she mumbled, turning on her heel and heading back to her house. "He's not the only one that knows more about what's going on in my life than I do at the moment…"


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** I just feel the need to say that I am overwhelmed by the positive response this story has gotten. It has not gotten a super amount of reviews, but a decent amount; mostly I am amazed at the sheer number of people who have added this story to their follows and/or favorites. This story just started as a whimsical idea for a 50k-words writing month challenge. Now that I'm almost done writing it (just over 4,000 words to go), I'm a little sad to be finishing it, but at the same time, very satisfied with the way it's turned out, and I'm glad to see that so many other people seem to be enjoying it, too. So...thank you! Enjoy this super-long chapter. :D

Me no own, you no sue.

* * *

Amrita was currently locked away in "her" room, fuming. She had been just getting off her shift at the hospital the day after the whole naga ordeal when Tony Stark had showed up at her workplace, decked out in full Iron Man armor, and physically picked her up and flown her back to Stark Tower, politely informing her (not asking her) that she would be staying there for the unforeseen future, until they had the naga issue completely sorted. Amrita had dug her heels in, but Tony had instructed Jarvis not to let her out of the tower except for work. Apparently he'd gone so far as to program her work schedule into the damn system, too, because when she'd tried to leave the tower by telling the system that she was due for a work shift, it had politely informed her that she was off work until Thursday.

Oh, was she ever going to beat that billionaire's shiny metal ass next time she saw him…

Amrita huffed and threw herself down on the bed, spreading her arms out to her sides and staring at the blank white ceiling. She briefly entertained the idea of going down to the kitchen and fixing something to eat, but she nixed the idea as soon as she realized that would run the risk of her bumping into Bruce, and she wasn't ready to do that. She didn't want to see him look at her differently with the things he now knew about her. Not only did he know she was an extra-dimensional being; he also knew she was capable of murder.

That was not something she wanted anyone to know about her—even herself.

Life had seemed a lot simpler when she hadn't known anything about her origins. She was beginning to loathe the fact that she had ever wanted to know more about herself and where she came from. She wanted to take it back—to go back to how she'd been before; clueless, but relatively content. Unfortunately, she realized, it was impossible to go back, and now she was stuck with having to deal with the consequences of her curiosity.

Amrita realized she must have fallen asleep when she was woken up by a constant, low humming sound. Groggily, she sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she looked around to try and pinpoint where the sound was coming from. She didn't notice anything at first, but on a second look, she realized something very out of place.

Her room was completely intact, but there was one point in the room, just by the far corner, where all of a sudden she saw grass and trees in the distance rather than a blank wall.

That _definitely_ did not belong there.

And then, a tall man stepped into sight in the impossible area; as he crossed the grass towards her, she saw that he had light blue skin, long, curling black hair, and four arms, and was dressed in scarlet and gold. However, as he smiled at her and stepped out onto the ceramic tile floor of her room, his appearance seemed to shimmer momentarily before becoming something much more…normal. More _human._ His hair remained the same, as well as his clothes, but his two extra arms disappeared, and his skin took on a rich caramel hue. Somehow, she knew instinctively who he was. She felt as though she had known this man her entire life, even though she had no memories of him.

"Vishnu," she said, giving him a nod of acknowledgment.

The god grinned. "Garuda!" He laughed, stepping forward and scooping her off the bed, twirling her around in his arms before setting her down and wrapping her in a tight embrace. "It's been far too long, child," he said, stepping back to hold her at arm's length. His expression turned somber. "I have searched for you for such a long time. I only finally found the dimension you were in when you shifted forms not long ago. Why did you not contact me?" he asked, seeming genuinely concerned.

Amrita looked down, ashamed to admit that she had no memory of how to even do such a thing. However, Vishnu lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. His expression was gentle.

"Garuda, you know I would not judge you," he said. She knew, despite not remembering him, that he spoke the truth. He was a kind god, and she trusted him.

"I don't remember anything from before earth. I don't even remember how long I've been here," she said. "I—I've been through so many regenerations, the memories have just dwindled and disappeared, I suppose. I don't even remember…you," she said, holding her hands up in a helpless gesture. She didn't want to disappoint Vishnu. He was her mentor, and her master. He was even something of a father figure to her.

Vishnu's gaze softened, though she could see the sadness in his eyes at the realization that she had no memories of him. She averted her gaze, not wanting to see that expression on him. It hurt like a punch in the gut.

"Garuda, it's alright," he said, placing his hands on either of her temples, his long fingers reaching almost all the way to the back of her skull. "Do you wish to remember?"

She hesitated momentarily, again struck with the realization of how she had never had so much trouble as she'd started having when she began to unearth the facts of her origin. But…looking at Vishnu, standing in front of her and looking so sad at the fact that she remembered nothing of him, she knew she could not continue to live in ignorance. She would only be hurting herself and the ones that cared for her if she did.

"Yes," she said. "I want to remember."

Vishnu smiled at her, relieved at her answer.

Then, her entire world was pain.

Amrita's body convulsed as though she was being electrocuted, and it felt like it, too; as though her flesh were being burned from skin to bone, and even her bones were melting. She swore she could even smell the scent of burning flesh, and it felt like an age before Vishnu's hands ripped away from her head and she collapsed to the ground, no longer feeling that constant burn but instead feeling a pain throughout her entire body. She realized as she blinked sluggishly that her skin was black and charred, and through the cracks in it there was blood seeping out onto Tony's drastically white floor. She tried to lift her head, but it felt heavy, as though someone had stuffed it full of lead. She blinked up at Vishnu from where she lay, seeing the wistful expression on his face.

"I'm sorry it had to hurt so much," he apologized. "Your memories were tampered with, it seems. It takes some very powerful magic to suppress them to quite that extent, so it needed some rather…brutal tactics to unearth them once again. I'm sorry, child," he apologized again, grimacing.

Amrita managed to shake her head as the memories that had been unlocked came rushing to the forefront of her mind. She studied them, one by one, as they flashed by, taking them in with slowly building rage.

"It's fine," she said, the dangerous edge to her voice skewed by the fact that she was slurring them, the intense pain having made her woozy. "I remember now."

"You do?" he said hopefully, crouching down and touching her arm gently, speeding up her healing process as the skin became healthy and new within moments. "Then does that mean you will come back with me to Vaikuntha? Lakshmi and I are so looking forward to having you back," he said, though his smile seemed to falter at the mention of Lakshmi.

Amrita bristled at the mention of the god's consort. Now that she knew what she did, she could not imagine going back with them until she had dealt with the very real issues at hand, especially now that the naga were looking for her in the human realm.

"I can't," she said, frowning at how Vishnu deflated at those two words, his shoulders slumping and his hopeful expression turning defeated. "Not yet, anyway." She shook her head, sitting up, accepting Vishnu's hand to steady her as she swayed slightly with the movement. "Vishnu, I did not come here of my own volition. There is a reason I am here, and…and I need to deal with that reason before I can return. I hope you understand," she said, looking at him hopefully.

Vishnu looked down, avoiding her gaze, but nodded.

"Alright," he said. "But remember this time…if you need anything…"

"Then I will call you right away," she said, smiling at him. "Thank you, Vishnu. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Not remember anything, that's what," the god joked, but sobered, picking her up and setting her back on her feet. "I hope you deal with whatever it is you need to swiftly and thoroughly. I miss my eagle," he said, wrapping her in a tight hug, which she halfheartedly returned, still not used to being lavished with attention, especially of the physical sort. She felt safe with him, though, having known him since she was only a fledgling.

Without so much as a proper goodbye, Vishnu stepped back into the trees, which disappeared as soon as he stepped through. She stared at where the trees used to be, frowning as she wondered when exactly her life had become so…_odd_. Her thoughts were interrupted by frantic pounding on her door.

"Amrita! Are you okay? I heard screaming!" Bruce's voice sounded shaky, as though he were trying to keep from panicking. Amrita quickly crossed the room and opened the door, about to speak when he surged forward and wrapped her in a hug.

_I seem to be getting a lot of hugs today,_ she thought, though this one caused her face to heat up as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder blade, patting it reassuringly.

"It's okay, Bruce," she said. "I'm okay. I didn't realize I was screaming. Sorry I scared you."

Bruce sighed, stepping back from the hug. She felt a twinge of disappointment at that, but kept her face impassive. "It's okay," he breathed, looking relieved. "Just… Don't do that again."

She held up her hand with a small smile. "Promise."

Bruce frowned. "What was that all about, though?" he asked. "The screaming, that is. And…how do you not even realize you're screaming? Were you having a nightmare or something? It's a bit early to be in bed, though…"

Amrita shook her head.

"I wasn't in bed. It was…" she trailed off. "It was… Oh, this is going to take a while; get in here," she sighed, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the room, motioning for him to take a seat on the bed as there were no chairs in the room. She hopped up on the bed, too, snatching a pillow and hugging it to her chest. "You know how you told me about how it was likely I was the Garuda from Hindu legend?" She said, skipping straight to the point.

"Huh?" he said, seeming confused at the sudden jump to a different topic. "Um, yeah, of course I remember. I also remember you reacting badly to my statement," he said, studying her with a concerned look, as though he felt she might react badly again at the topic despite that she had been the one to bring it up in the first place.

"Well…it's true," she said, and proceeded to spill everything that had just happened to him, watching as his eyebrows gradually climbed towards his hairline the further she went with her explanation.

"…Wow," he said as she concluded with how he'd knocked on her door afterwards. "So…what did you remember, that you feel like you have to stay here?" he said, though she could see a flicker of emotion at that. It seemed like…disappointment? Hurt? She didn't know why he would feel that way. Maybe he thought her a closer friend than she thought. She didn't allow herself to hope it might be something more than that. That would just be a recipe for disaster.

Amrita's gaze trailed down to the dark blue comforter on the bed, and she picked at a loose thread as she spoke, her eyes glazing over as she remembered all that had happened before she'd ended up on earth...

* * *

_Garuda was furious._

_She had been forced to sneak into the cradle of the gods in order to fetch amrita, the source of the gods' immortality. They had expected her, though, and she had had to fight them in order to obtain the amrita. She had managed to scatter them, but did not escape with her prize unscathed. One of her wings was damaged, and she waited impatiently for it to heal, hidden in a dense forested area in case one of the gods managed to come back before she was healed and tried to find her._

"_Child, why are you so keen on stealing amrita?"_

_Garuda jumped, scrambling back, but jostling her injured wing. She hissed in pain, glaring up at the intruder. The blue skin and four arms were a dead giveaway that it was Vishnu._

"_It is not for me that I steal it," she said sharply._

_Vishnu's eyes softened, and he crouched in front of her, placing a hand on her wing despite that she tried to jerk away from his touch. She closed her eyes as it mended itself beneath his touch before looking back at him, confused as to why he was helping her. Shouldn't he be trying to take the amrita back? After all, he would be affected, too, if it was taken away…_

"_Who is it for, then, child?"_

_Garuda looked down, swallowing audibly._

"_It's for my mother," she admitted quietly. "The naga are holding her hostage and have asked for the amrita in exchange for her release."_

_Vishnu gave her a pitying look. "Child, there is no need to give in to their demands. You may make them think you have, but here is an idea of how to get your mother back without giving them the power they thirst for…" He leaned forward, whispering his plan into her ear. She listened intently, nodding as he finished. It was not perfect, but it was a better plan than simply giving in to the serpents' demands and ultimately making them stronger than the gods themselves. The cowards, she thought, did not deserve such power._

_Garuda frowned at Vishnu._

"_Why are you helping me?" she asked. "I stole from you the source of your immortality."_

_Vishnu smiled secretively. "Because I hope that someday we can be partners—perhaps even friends," he said. "And if you succeed in restoring the amrita, I believe you will be more than worthy of immortality yourself…after all, even without it, I witnessed firsthand your power against even gods."_

_Garuda smiled a bit at the compliment._

"_Thank you, Vishnu," she said honestly, securing the satchel that held the amrita slung over her shoulder and stretching out her wings, preparing to take flight. She felt suddenly nervous about her plan. "I hope we meet again soon."_

_Vishnu nodded. "I have full faith that we will, Garuda."_

_With that, she took off, heading for the naga's hideout._

_When she arrived, the naga were eagerly awaiting her hideout. She again became nervous at the sheer amount of them. There must have been thousands there. The chieftain stepped forward, his two servants bringing her mother, Vinata, forth as well. Garuda stepped forward and removed the amrita from her satchel, placing the jug of it on the ground before stepping back._

"_I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. Now release my mother to me," she said, sounding more confident than she felt._

_The chieftain studied the jug, ensuring it was the one that usually rested in the cradle of the gods before nodding to his servants. Vinata rushed over to Garuda, enveloping her in a tight hug._

"_Oh, my daughter," she whispered. "What have you done?"_

"_Hush, mother," Garuda whispered back, hiding her mouth in her mother's hair so the serpents wouldn't be able to read her lips. "I have a plan. They will not gain immortality because of me."_

_The naga chieftain was just about to raise the jug of amrita to his lips to partake of it when Garuda addressed him._

"_Chieftain, I find what you are doing very unwise," she said. "This is a sacred nectar, and you must be pure in order to drink of it. I advise that you all pray for absolution before drinking, lest you have repercussions for letting a holy drink pass your unclean lips."_

_The chieftain pursed his lips, displeased with her interruption, but seeing sense in her words._

"_Naga!" he barked, addressing all that were present. "Come pray with me. We shall partake of the amrita after."_

_Vinata grew tense as the naga chieftain placed the jug down and turned, ascending the platform where his throne sat. As he knelt, so did all the others, and the closed their eyes as the naga chieftain led them in prayer. Amrita broke from her mother's embrace, silently snatching the jug back from its resting place and scurrying back to her mother, scooping her up and spreading her wings to take flight._

_A cry of alarm went up, and Amrita glanced down to see one sentry, who had cracked one eye open to set a greedy gaze on the amrita, pointing up at their retreating forms in anger. The naga below scrambled for their weapons, one of them snatching up a bow and arrow, and as they shot at the two, Garuda banked—_

_Vinata cried out, falling limp in her arms; an arrow protruding from her stomach._

"_Mother!"_

_Garuda dove downward, not caring that they weren't out of naga territory yet. She needed to get the arrow out of her mother and bind the wound. She landed behind a large boulder, checking her mother's pulse._

_It wasn't there._

_Garuda sat there, numbly, for a moment. Then the anger bloomed, building within her until it reached unspeakable heights._

"_Garuda, I am so sorry," Vishnu said softly, appearing beside her. "I had no idea this would happen."_

_Garuda wordlessly removed the satchel, placing it in his hands._

"_Garuda, don't do this. There's too many of them."_

_She glared at him, angry tears blurring her vision._

"_They took my mother," she said, her voice barely over a whisper. "They killed her. They don't deserve any better fate than that."_

_Vishnu didn't say a word to stop her as she turned to head back to the swell of angry naga searching for her. There was nothing he could say, really. She was so far gone in her thoughts of murderous vengeance that there was nothing he could say to convince her not to avenge her mother's death._

_Garuda attacked the naga from above, taking them momentarily by surprise as she ripped through their numbers with her vicious talons and fire. They shot arrows into her and sliced at her, but she was so mad with grief and anger and barely felt it. By the time she came back to herself, the entire naga army lay dead or too injured to stand all around her. She swayed from the blood loss she'd suffered, and carelessly stepped on bodies to make her way out of the field of carnage, pausing to slit a naga's throat if they groaned when she stepped on them. When she finally stepped over the last body and looked back at the waste she'd laid to the naga, she felt a dim sense of satisfaction, but more than that, she was overcome with the grief that she had smothered with anger until then. She collapsed to the ground, sobbing, feeling herself growing weaker as the blood spilled from her wounds. Her vision grew dark, and she was vaguely aware of her body being scooped up in a pair of strong arms._

* * *

_Garuda slipped in and out of consciousness for an indeterminate amount of time, sometimes hearing people talking, sometimes just hearing birds chirping in the distance._

"_You can't be serious about this, my love," she heard a female voice say once._

"_I am completely serious, my dear. I do not joke about things like this," a familiar male voice said in response._

"_But…this is immortality we're talking about. Such a thing should be decided by a council of the gods, should it not?"_

_There was a sigh. "Lakshmi, she shall be my responsibility. I believe she is more than fit for immortality. And if she is not, I shall take it away myself. This is my decision, though. She shall be my protégé." There was a moment of silence. "I feel responsible for what happened to her mother. It was my idea that got her killed, after all."_

"_No, it was the naga's greed that got her killed," the female scolded gently. "You should not blame yourself for others' faults."_

_It was silent again for a long moment, and she almost thought they'd left when the male spoke again._

"_Nevertheless. If I do not grant her immortality, she shall die." He seemed to have made his decision, and he spoke firmly now. "Hold her down. I am going to start the ritual."_

_There was more pain, and she slipped fully back into blessed unconsciousness once more._

* * *

_It had been quite some time since Vishnu had saved Garuda's life. She had helped him keep the naga in line (with vicious gladness), and had traveled to many different realms with him. One of her favorites—aside from Vishnu's home realm of Vaikuntha, of course, which was the most beautiful she had seen to date—had been the Norse gods' home, Asgard. The only thing that had put a bit of a damper on the trip had been the black-haired prince that had insisted on pulling mean pranks on her throughout the duration of their stay. She frowned at the thought of him. At least his brother had been nice, if not a bit too boisterous for her taste._

_Garuda sat in the garden to the south of Vishnu's home. Vishnu himself was off at a council meeting of the gods, so it was quiet. Garuda liked the quiet, though. It gave her time to reflect. She sighed, leaning her head back against the tree she was sitting under. She raised it again when she heard the cracking of a branch under foot, looking around to try and pinpoint the source of the sound._

"_Vishnu?" she called out, though she was not expecting him back for at least a couple more hours. "Lakshmi?" she tried, though the consort had gone to visit relatives a couple weeks ago and had yet to return._

_A large hand suddenly closed around her throat, and she scrabbled at it, trying to pry it off. It just gripped her tighter, and she looked up to see Lakshmi's face, a cold expression on it._

"_L-Lakshmi?" she managed to choke out. "What are you—doing?"_

"_Oh, good," the consort said with a serene smile. "I was afraid the disguise might not be convincing enough."_

_The consort's eyes turned slitted, and Garuda was overcome with anger._

"_Naga!" she spat._

"_O-ho-ho, give the bird a prize! Well, maybe not, I don't really like you that much," the naga said. "In fact, I _loathe_ you. You're not exactly popular with my brethren, you know, after all the persecution you've given us."_

"_You deserve every bit I give you," she said, though she could see the spots starting to dance in front of her eyes from lack of oxygen._

_The naga rolled her eyes, loosening her grip a bit and letting Garuda take a few rasping breaths._

"_You can't kill me, you know," Garuda taunted, her talons itching to claw out the naga's hideous eyes._

"_Oh yes, I know," the naga said with a sickly-sweet grin. "That's why I'm not going to kill you…yet."_

_The naga began chanting, and Garuda screamed out in pain. Whatever dark magic the naga was performing was causing her to transform. Her talons became fingers, blunt and useless in battle. She could feel her feathers molting away to reveal skin, and if it were the same as her fingers, it was a dark brown color, her hair that replaced her head feathers falling in her eyes a deep reddish-brown. Her golden armor fell away, and she felt incredibly vulnerable as she sat naked before the naga's condescending gaze. She curled in on herself, ashamed at her weakness._

_The naga, finished her spell, smiled wickedly._

"_Ah, see _now_ I will finish you," she said. "Now that you are weak and unable to fight back. You see, I am not as foolish as some of my brethren, to take you on when you are in full fighting form." The naga raised her claws, preparing to strike._

"_Garuda? Are you here?" Came Vishnu's voice. Never had Garuda been more glad to hear his voice._

_The naga hissed, claws still poised as she tried to hurriedly calculate whether she could kill the eagle with enough time to run away and act like she'd just arrived._

_Garuda didn't give her the chance, though. She reached out with what power she could still tap into and created an interdimensional rift next to her to the first place that came to mind, biting the naga's hand and causing her to curse and let go, letting Garuda fall away into another realm. The naga flung a curse at her as she fell, though, and Garuda was struck by it. She didn't feel anything different from it, though, which was confusing. Her mind quickly turned to the fact that she was falling instead._

_Garuda miscalculated her landing. She shrieked as she realized she was falling through the air above a rocky landscape, with no means of slowing her descent. She tried to reach for her winged form, but to no avail. She couldn't even feel its presence deep within her. She was stuck in a disgustingly human body and was falling to her death. The ground rushed up beneath her, and the last thing she felt was her head bashing against a rock before everything went black._

* * *

"_Miss, are you alright?"_

_The woman groaned, stirring. She slowly blinked open her eyes to find herself staring in the face of a concerned, middle-aged woman. She looked back at her, confused._

"_Who are you?" she asked, pausing as she looked around, noticing they were seated around a campfire. A wagon and two large horses sat a little ways back from the fire, and aside from the woman watching over her, there was a man about her age, an elderly couple, and a small girl that looked about three years old, staring at her shyly from beneath the middle-aged man's legs. She presumed he must be her father, and the woman watching over her, her mother._

"_I am Anis, and this is Emaus, my husband," she said, gesturing to the man. "We found you lying naked alongside the road and figured you must have passed out due to heat stroke. What were you doing, lying naked out there?" she said, seeming very worried for the woman's well-being._

_The woman tried to remember ever lying outside in the sun, naked. She couldn't remember anything up until waking up at that campfire. She tried to remember her name, but she couldn't think of anything. Her mind was a complete blank._

"…_I don't…I don't know," she said numbly, the startling fact of not being able to remember anything up until that point not really feeling real to her at that point._

"_No?" Anis asked, eyes wide. "Well…do you know your name, at least?"_

_The woman shook her head, not meeting Anis' eyes, feeling ashamed that she couldn't remember anything for some reason. As though she was damaged goods._

"_Well, we need something to call you," Anis said gently. "What about…Ahmose? Or Priya?"_

_The two names apart did not strike anything within the woman, but together, they sounded like something familiar._

"_Amrita," she stated firmly. "You can call me Amrita."_


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **If you just read the entire story and are coming to this chapter straight from the previous one...sorry! It is a shorter one, especially in comparison to the monster I posted previously. (Well, it was a monster chapter in MY books...I usually aim for 3,000-ish words and that one was over 4,500 without the author's note...)

Either way, I hope you enjoy the chapter. It just worked out that it's shorter. But it's fluffy. And everyone likes some good fluff once in a while, right? :) And there is action coming up next chapter, and plot! Well, there's always plot, it's just not always moving as quickly in some chapters. :P

Me no own Avengers. You no sue. 'Kay? Sweet.

* * *

Amrita blearily opened her eyes as the sun shone on them, signaling it was daytime once again. She groaned quietly, rolling over to try and go back to sleep, when she just about rolled right into one Bruce Banner's sleeping form. Startled, she froze, trying not to disturb him as she carefully scooted back so that she didn't feel like she was going to brush noses with him if she so much as twitched. How had he ended up in her bed? Her mind raced to answer the question, and she remembered suddenly everything that had happened last night, from Vishnu coming and restoring her memory, to her telling Bruce about it all and why she'd stayed, and how afterwards she'd been so exhausted she'd just laid down to go to sleep, and asked Bruce to stay with her so she wouldn't be alone with everything she'd just learned.

Apparently, he'd stayed the whole night. She guessed he must have been tired, too, because she'd figured he would've just stayed long enough to be polite and left once she'd fallen asleep. She studied his sleeping face, smiling to herself. The scientist was too nice for his own good, she thought. It would be much too easy to take advantage of that. She was glad she was a better person than that. She winced at the thought of being a 'person', though. Was she really?

Deciding that was something she could ponder later, she climbed out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping scientist, and headed off for a quick shower and to get dressed for the day, finding the fact that she'd slept in yesterday's clothes a bit disgusting. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was an absolute mess; she quickly yanked a comb through it and vigorously brushed her teeth before she got in the shower.

When she stepped back into the bedroom, dressed in loose cotton pants and a tank top and squeezing the water out of her hair with her towel. Bruce was just sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. Amrita stopped in her tracks as their eyes locked, and she could feel her face grow warm.

"Um," she stammered. "Sorry about last night. I shouldn't have made you stay."

"No, no. It's okay. You didn't want to be alone," Bruce said. "I can understand that, it's been a very…informative couple of days," he said awkwardly, running a hand through his already messy hair and yawning as he rolled out of bed, stretching his arms up over his head.

Amrita felt a surge of affection for the scientist, smiling at him involuntarily. Unfortunately, he caught the look she was giving him and tilted his head, smiling back, but his being a confused one.

"What, what's with the smile?"

Amrita shook her head, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around his middle.

"Nothing," she mumbled into his wrinkled dress shirt. "Just…thanks. For everything. For being you."

Bruce chuckled. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you had a crush on me," he teased, not realizing he'd hit the nail right on the head.

Amrita's face heated up to the point where she was surprised there wasn't any steam coming off of it. She tensed up, not saying anything.

Bruce instantly realized he'd said the wrong thing from her reaction.

"Amrita…?"

The redhead seemed to snap out of her panicked freeze-up and pulled away from him, all but running out the bedroom door.

"Amrita!"

She heard Bruce's footsteps pounding down the staircase after her as she made a mad dash for the kitchen, the only other place in the building she could remember how to get to off the top of her head. She didn't even think as she ran over to the coat closet in the hall before the kitchen and slammed it shut after her, melting the metal door hinges in place so they wouldn't budge. She could hear Bruce walk past the doors, not realizing she was in there, before back-tracking. She could see his shadow in front of the door, and her breath hitched. She felt sick to her stomach at the realization that he knew she liked him now. She didn't know what to do with that. Hell, she didn't even know what to do with her feelings towards him to begin with. All these revelations, they all pointed towards the fact that she shouldn't pursue a relationship with him. She was so confused, though. She'd had relationships with humans before. Why did the fact that she knew what she was have to change her ability to have relationships? She wanted to be able to be with Bruce, to get to know him better, and he her. She covered her mouth as she felt the hot warmth of tears in her eyes. Knocking sounded on the closet door, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Amrita?" Bruce called softly. "I know you're in there, and I think we should talk."

Amrita stubbornly remained silent.

Bruce sighed. "Alright, well, I'll talk. You can just…listen, I guess."

Bruce's shadow moved, and it sounded like he'd slid down the door so he was sitting with his back against it.

"It's okay that you like me," he said gently. "To be honest…I…I like you, too."

Amrita's breath hitched. It felt like the air had been snatched from her lungs. She would have wondered if maybe he was playing a trick on her, if she hadn't known how kind and caring the man was. It brought fresh tears to her eyes, though they were happy ones this time around. She stifled her sobs, listening intently to what he had to say.

"I wasn't sure when to tell you. To be honest, I'm not sure if I even would have, if it weren't for this…thing," he said. "Let's call it a happy accident."

Amrita smiled at that.

"When I found out who you were…or are, I guess…I just…" He sighed. "I was upset. And angry. I'm pretty sure I just about Hulked out at one point." She could picture the wry grin that she thought must be on his face at that point. "That's because I'd just realized how much I liked you. You're smart, witty, caring, and despite that you have a bit of a temper and can be kind of awkward at times," Amrita gave an indignant '_hey!_' at that and Bruce just laughed, "I think you're a pretty great person, and I like spending time with you."

Bruce waited in silence until he heard a _clunk_, looking over to see that the one closet door's hinges had fallen off, and the door tipped back into the closet as Amrita shuffled out, plunking herself down on the ground next to him. She wordlessly wiped the tear tracks from her face and turned to him.

"For what it's worth…I think you're pretty great, too."

Bruce grinned. "Good, because I was thinking that maybe we could make a team. We'll call it the Pretty Great Squad, and it'll be like this super-exclusive club that everyone wants to be in but nobody gets invited into, and it might end in world domination—"

Bruce promptly shut up due to the fact that Amrita had leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was gentle and feather-light, but it was a kiss. He smiled as she pulled back.

"You call that a kiss?"

Amrita looked insulted.

"I'd like to see you do better," she challenged.

"I thought you'd never ask," he winked, cupping the back of her head with his hand and leaning in to kiss her again, more firmly this time. His skin tingled as she placed her hands on his chest, pressing her fingers into the wrinkled fabric of his shirt. She sighed happily into the kiss, and he realized he felt happier at that moment than he had in years.

Of course, the moment couldn't last.

"What the—!"

The two broke apart to see Tony standing on the other side of the kitchen, bags of groceries in hand, staring on in shock; not at them, but behind them. Pepper peeked out from behind Tony, grinning proudly at them.

"What the hell did you do to my closet?" Tony demanded, before he got a horrified look. "You didn't…you know…did you?"

Amrita took off one of her slippers and chucked it at the billionaire's head, and it hit home with a loud _slap._

"Oh, that's it, sister. I may have interrupted a moment, but you are so getting it."

Bruce sighed as Amrita squealed and ran away from the raging billionaire. Pepper just shook her head.

"Well, at least you can't say there's ever a dull moment around here," she joked as she started putting Tony's long-forgotten groceries away in the fridge. She gave the scientist a wink. "And congratulations, by the way. It's about damn time!"

* * *

"Give me an update, Agent Hill," Director Fury said as he entered the main tech area of SHIELD headquarters, black trench coat sweeping behind him ominously.

"Dr. Rowman's tracking algorithm is complete, we're just keying it in to our systems now," Hill said. "We should be able to track anything and everything that may have come out of the rifts."

"About damn time," Fury muttered. "We've had too many of those things over the past few days for me to be able to get a good night's sleep."

Agent Hill straightened from where she'd been leaning over one of the tech's shoulders with a grim look on her face.

"Unfortunately, sir, I don't think this is going to help you in that regard…"

Director Fury fixed her with a weary look before giving a small sigh and motioning to the tech.

"Bring it up on screen."

The tech nodded, and a screen came up showing a world map with almost the entire North American continent covered in ominously glowing red dots, all converging on a single point.

"Motherf—! Get me Romanoff and Barton," Fury barked, storming out of the tech area with Agent Hill close on his heels.

"On it," she said, patching into the communications system through her earpiece and contacting the two agents. "They're en route; they'll meet us on the launch pad, sir."

Fury had to resist the urge to tap his foot impatiently as the elevator ascended to the top of the building. He and Agent Hill emerged onto the roof top moments before Natasha and Clint did. When the two super spies arrived, Fury was giving orders to a Quinjet pilot. He turned to them, nodding brusquely and motioning to the jet.

"You two are going to Manhattan," he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "We have a level one emergency that needs our attention. You're to round up Banner, Stark, and Mehrotra and get them out to as remote a location as possible. We have reason to believe Mehrotra is attracting some bad attention," he said, pulling out a tablet and displaying the screen the techs had shown him earlier. "And I mean _a_ _lot_ of bad attention."

Their eyes widened fractionally before they regained their cool exteriors.

"Yes, sir," Barton said, glad he'd grabbed his bow and quiver of arrows before rushing up there. He glared enviously at Natasha. She'd already had her full Black Widow garb on when Agent Hill had called on them, having been just about to go out on a different mission. He guessed someone else would end up covering it for her. He frowned, though, uncomfortable doing a mission in his civilian clothes.

"Relax, Clint. I stored an extra set of your uniform in the Quinjet last time you forgot to put it on," Natasha said nonchalantly, uncannily sensing what it was he was so concerned about.

Clint gave her a look. "Don't you mean the last time I didn't have time to put it on before a level one emergency came up?"

"No, I'm pretty sure I mean last time you forgot it."

"Enough squabbling, children. Get on that damn plane and do your job," Fury ordered. They both snapped to attention, nodding.

"Yes, sir," they quipped in unison, clambering up into the Quinjet and buckling in.

"Bet you five bucks the doctor takes care of them before we even get there," Natasha said coolly, flipping on the controls.

Clint gave her a confused look. "What, Banner? Of course he would, why the hell would I try and bet against that? That's just idiocy at its purest form."

"Hmm? Oh, no, I mean Dr. Mehrotra," Natasha clarified. "Why would I even try to get you to bet against Banner? Now _that_ is idiocy at its purest form," she said as they began take-off, the force pulling both of them back against their seats.

Clint gave her a weird look. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked. "I wouldn't exactly put her in the same fighting class as the Hulk. I mean, sure, she's a fire-starter, but that doesn't mean she can wipe out a frickin' army of other-worldly beasties bearing down on her."

Natasha scoffed. "I didn't think you were _that_ misinformed, Barton… Still, though. Yea or nay?"

Clint chortled.

"Yeah, alright. You're on."

Natasha smirked.

"Good. Now get us Stark Tower on the comm. I believe everyone else will want to know that they should be expecting visitors any moment now…"


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Still not that long of a chapter, but at least it's longer than the last one, am I right? Ha ha. Anyways, this is the second-to-last chapter. Only one more left to go, guys! Also, I highly doubt that there is going to be a sequel, so savor it while it lasts, okay!? Lol.

Thank you so, so, so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and/or favorited this story during its duration. I hope people continue to read and enjoy it once the updates are done. :)

I don't own Avengers. That would be kind of pointless for me to make this fanfiction if I did, now, wouldn't it?

Now, without further ado: The chapter! With plot! And action! And... oh, just read it. I should really work on my long-windedness...

* * *

Amrita and Bruce were currently lying on a blanket on Tony's private beach, cloud-watching and talking about random things. Amrita was having trouble focusing on the questions, though, because the fact that Bruce's and her hands were clasped in between the two of them, with his thumb stroking the back of her hand occasionally, was rather distracting. It gave her a giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Okay, okay. I've got one," Bruce said, turning his head to look at her. She mirrored his movement and immediately blushed as their noses almost touched they were so close together. He grinned at her, and she knew from the teasing edge to it that it was because of how red her face was. She pouted. "What's your biggest pet peeve?"

"Ugh. _Nail-biting_," she groaned. "Do you realize how many health problems can be traced back to nail-biting? There is a strain of bacteria that live under the nails that—"

"Okay, shhh," Bruce said, patting her on the head placatingly. She growled quietly at him, and he smirked in response. "Well, now I know what to do if we ever get in a fight…"

"Oh, you wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?" he teased.

Amrita rolled her eyes at him.

"Shush, you. Now, what is your favorite animal?"

The two of them just stared at each other in silence before Amrita gave Bruce a questioning look. He responded with a shrug and motioned as though he were zipping his mouth shut. She gave an exasperated sigh and motioned that she was unzipping it.

"Thank you. It was getting a little stuffy in there," he quipped. He paused for a moment, thinking. "I like dogs."

"How original," Amrita said drily.

"Well, it's true," Bruce said defensively. "They're man's best friend. Unconditional love. Aside from the fact that most of them shed like there's no tomorrow, what's not to like?"

"The slobber…the pooping wherever they want…the smell…" Amrita said, ticking the things off on the fingers of her free hand.

"Okay, point taken. The dog issue should be tabled for further discussion at a later date." He nodded, as though to affirm his own statement.

Amrita sighed, and was about to comment on that when their gaze was drawn skyward by the somewhat familiar sound of repulsors, signaling Iron Man's arrival.

Tony landed just a couple feet away from the lounging couple as they scrambled up into sitting positions.

"Bruce. Rita," he acknowledged each of them in turn with a brisk nod. "I think you should both suit up. Like, right now."

"What? Why? What's happening?" Bruce said, sounding alarmed at the sudden turn of events.

"Because," Tony explained, sounding impatient, "we are about to get incoming in about T minus…um…_now!_" He launched himself forward, knocking Amrita and Bruce down and out of the way as a giant, scaly form rocketed down into the spot where they'd just been sitting, tearing the beach blanket to shreds as it rolled, its sharp teeth gnashing in its grotesquely humanoid face as it went.

Amrita hissed, bristling at the sight of the naga. It wasn't the last one to land, though. All of a sudden, they were surrounded by the falling forms of naga as they descended from the sky, some able to control their descent better than others.

"Bruce…I think you may want to step back," Amrita warned him as she felt the quivering power surge through her body, initiating the transformation.

Bruce watched in somewhat horrific fascination as his…well, he supposed she was his girlfriend, now…transformed in front of his eyes. She had told him about this, and he had glimpsed it through the Hulk's eyes, but he had never witnessed it in his human form. She grew much larger than he'd imagined she would; he wagered a guess that she was about ten feet tall by the time she stopped growing. Her hair had turned to feathers, and wings larger than he thought possible had sprouted from her back. Shining gold armor seemed to pour over her form like liquid and hold the shape of her body beneath it. The most frightening part, though, he found, was her eyes.

Her eyes were gold, just like always, but they held a ferociousness—a bloodlust, even—within them that he didn't think she could be capable of, and the whites of her eyes had turned black. Add to that the fact that her fingers had turned into talons like that of a bird of prey, he suddenly felt an odd sense that they truly belonged together.

They were two people who others would also call monsters.

"Brucey? Your turn," Tony prodded.

"Mm…no, thanks. I think I'll sit this one out," he said nervously. "I don't want to run the risk of causing…friendly fire, as it were." In other words, he didn't want to risk possibly hurting Amrita. She had enough to worry about as it was with how many naga they were surrounded by. Even if she had fought an entire army of them before, that didn't mean he felt unconcerned for her well-being.

Tony shrugged, the suit echoing his movement. "Suit yourself," he said, launching himself up and blasting away at the naga that just kept coming despite that Amrita was tearing through their ranks like a hot knife through butter, her strikes deadly with their accuracy.

Bruce stood awkwardly for a few long minutes that felt like an eternity, watching the battle go down. The naga that writhed along the beach around him barely paid him a second glance, their attention solely fixed on Amrita—or Garuda, he supposed he should call her in this form. He didn't really think that the Amrita he'd come to know and—dare he say it?—love was truly who was in control there. This was something, or someone, more primal and instinctive; someone fixated on vengeance for a loss that had been suffered so very long ago. He was struck by the realization that this must be what other people felt like when they saw him in his Hulk form, his usually calm self replaced by something angry and destructive.

Bruce looked around the beach, realizing that although Garuda was cutting through the naga's ranks at a fairly brisk pace, for every one she felled, two more landed on the beach to take its place. He tensed as Garuda was slashed across one wing. The wing fell limp and she whirled, knocking her attacker back with the other wing. The other naga that she had been fighting managed to get a good swipe at her back as she broke the neck of the one she was facing, and Garuda screeched in pain as the naga's nails dug in deep.

Bruce saw red.

The roar he let out at realizing Amrita was in trouble was inhuman—and familiar. He could feel his mind clouding over with rage as he gave himself over to his angrier self.

The Hulk lurched forward through the mass of writhing serpents, knocking them aside impatiently as he went until he reached Garuda. He had eyes only for the naga that were attacking her, and he snatched the one that had gone for her back from the air as it was in mid-swipe, aiming for her back again. The Hulk picked up the serpent…

…And threw it straight down into the ground, burying it up to the end of its tail in sand. Its tail writhed, but he simply stomped on it, and it went limp.

Hulk snorted, turning back to Garuda to see her send him a grateful nod as she tried to fend off the other naga that had taken their fallen comrade's place. Hulk grinned.

"Hulk smash!" he yelled, diving into the fray once more.

With both the Hulk and Garuda decimating the enemy's numbers, it soon seemed like the tide was turning in their favor.

"You know, I'm not usually one for senseless violence, but it looks good on you two," Tony drawled, feeling fairly drained from the fight that, despite that they seemed to have the upper hand now, did not look like it was going to be ending any time soon.

Garuda just hissed in response, the Hulk not even signaling that he'd heard Tony's comment at all. Tony frowned, though no one could see it from outside his suit.

"Gee, you guys really know how to make a guy feel wanted," he muttered, zeroing in on another target when he saw something that made him stop in his tracks.

All of the naga stopped their fighting, turning towards the part of the beach that had suddenly turned into a scene of a sprawling forest at dusk. Hulk and Garuda knocked out their respective opponents (Garuda killing hers) before turning to see what was drawing everyone's attention. A tall, blue-skinned male with four arms and long, curling black hair stepped out, along with a beautiful woman dressed in delicately embroidered robes, with long, thick black hair, tan skin, and a softly-shaped oval face.

The woman's features were marred, however, by the sick, sadistic smile she wore.

"Garuda," she purred silkily. "How nice to see you again. I hear from dear Vishnu that he undid the memory block I performed on you when you so rudely cut our last meeting short." She gave a theatric pout to convey her "hurt".

Garuda hissed. "_Imposter!_ How dare you play at being the holy consort of a god?" Her gaze flashed to Vishnu, who stood stoically at "Lakshmi's" side. "Vishnu, what are you doing? Are you just going to stand there and let her mock you?" she demanded angrily.

"Ah, ah, ah," the imposter said, bringing her hand out that had been positioned behind Vishnu's back and waggling a familiar, wicked dagger at her in a taunting manner. "_Dearest_ Vishnu may be immortal, but if I were to incapacitate him with his own dagger, he would fall into a deep enough sleep that I could remove his head from his body and move them far enough from each other that he wouldn't be able to recover himself. And I'm quite certain you would never be able to stand for that." The naga regarded her coolly. "So, about this whole 'fight to the death' thing. In exchange for letting Vishnu live, let's say…you die. Without a fight." She smiled sweetly. "Deal?"

Garuda fell to her knees, staring at her master. He stared back at her, unblinking, giving her the tiniest of nods. With that, Garuda's shoulders slumped, and she slowly transformed back into the more familiar form of Amrita. The naga grinned, visibly relaxing at the change.

"_Good._ Excellent choice, Garuda. I believe you'll find—" The naga's speech was cut off as she shrieked, dropping the dagger that had suddenly turned red-hot in her hand, the flesh of her hand badly scorched and smoking. Vishnu looked around at the rest of the naga inhabiting the beach, raising his fist. Clenching it, the air was filled with the naga's screams, as they curled in on themselves before crumbling to dust. Vishnu nodded, satisfied, before whirling around and grabbed the naga posing as his consort by the throat, lifting up the thing that dared wear his beloved's face in order to try and harm his precious protégé.

"Take it off," he ground out.

The naga writhed in his grasp, incompliant. He tightened his grip, glaring.

"_Take. It. Off._"

The naga wisely did as he said, transforming back into its true self, its scales glinting dully in the midday sun. Vishnu gave a brisk nod, loosening his grip just enough to allow it to suck in a raspy breath, watching unforgivingly as it coughed and hacked to try and clear its constricted airway.

"Garuda," he said, still watching the naga, unwilling to take his eyes off of it in case it tried to escape while he was distracted.

Amrita responded, glancing momentarily at the Hulk, who seemed to be itching to start fighting again, but was surprisingly still, watching the exchange. Amrita gave him a small smile, grateful that he'd helped her in her fight, before stepping forward, stopping at Vishnu's side.

"We're leaving. This _thing_," he spat, nodding at the naga in his hand, "is going to take us to where it hid Lakshmi, and we are going to get her back."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Tony cut in, stepping forward, still clad in his Iron Man suit despite that the fight was over. "Hold on, doesn't Rita get a say in this?"

Vishnu turned his glare on Tony, narrowing his eyes at the unfamiliar human clad in metal.

"You think my protégé would be unwilling to help me save my consort? Lakshmi is just like a mother to her." Vishnu snorted. "Besides, what makes you think that she would be so quick to stay here? She has lived in Vaikuntha for many millennia; much longer than she has been here, in any case."

There was a groan, and everyone was distracted by the fact that Bruce had returned to his human—and buck-ass nude—form. At the realization that he was naked and there were people looking at him (well, one person and a Hindu god—Amrita was blushing heavily and pointedly looking anywhere but at him), he quickly grabbed the shredded beach blanket that he and Amrita had been lying on before the attack, tying it around his waist with a secure double knot.

"Amrita," he said, staring at her pleadingly, hoping his eyes conveyed his message: _Don't leave._

Amrita was struck with guilt at the look, and, glancing at Vishnu, who raised an eyebrow at her, she rushed forward to the mostly-naked man, wrapping him in a tight, apologetic hug. Bruce wrapped his arms tightly around her in return, unwilling to let her go.

"Don't," he murmured next to her ear. "Don't do this. We were doing so good. I don't want you to go."

Amrita blinked back her tears, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

"I have to," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Vishnu and Lakshmi have been like parents to me ever since I lost my mother. I could never live with myself if I abandoned Lakshmi to whatever fate the naga have in store for her."

Bruce took a deep, shuddering breath, letting it out slowly.

"…I'll miss you," he said. That was putting it lightly. He didn't want to tell her how much it would hurt him if she left, though. He knew she felt obligated to leave, and he didn't want her to leave with the regret he knew she would feel if she knew how much her doing so would wear at him.

Amrita couldn't hold the tears back anymore at those words. She silently let the tears flow onto Bruce's shoulders.

"I'll miss you, too," she whispered. "We'll see each other again, though."

She was determined to come back. She knew things might not be the same when she came back. Hell, _she _might not be the same when she came back; but she would never forgive herself if she just gave up on the possibility of what could've happened with the two of them without ever giving it a try.

Bruce smiled sadly.

"I believe you," he said as she slipped from his grasp.

He didn't say, though, that he only believed the next time he saw her would only be for her to say goodbye, watching silently as she slipped away with Vishnu, disappearing into the trees; and then she was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **TRIPLE FREAKING UPDATE OH MY GAH.

I am celebrating the fact that I actually got this story finished (just over 50,000 words!) in a month. This just proves that nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it. (Except maybe turning into a pterodactyl. That might actually be impossible. Oh well, a girl can dream!)

Thank you oh so much to everyone who has supported this story throughout the month, be it through reading, reviewing, following, and/or favoriting it. It's been a pleasure, and I want you all to know that you're amazing and you all deserve only the best in life. ( / gross emotional author sobbing)

Just a note, seeing as this month has been an absolute whirlwind of writing with zero editing (and I do mean ZERO), please let me know if you noticed any inconsistencies, typos, or grammatical errors in the story so that I can go back and fix them.

YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL, READERS.

Now, without further ado, I present to you: Ze final chapter! Enjoy!

* * *

Bruce's heart was not in his work. It had been five months since Amrita had left with Vishnu, and he was still hung up on her. The sad thing was, he was beginning to realize that she might not come back at all, despite her promise. After all, he wasn't even sure how time passed in Vaikuntha in comparison to how it passed on earth. For all he knew, a few hours there could be a lifetime on earth, which could mean that he would be dead and gone by the time Amrita was able to make good on her promise. He felt his breath hitch at the thought, and he shoved his plate of half-eaten food aside, leaning his elbows on the table in front of him and placing his head in his hands.

"Bruce. Buddy," Tony said from the other side of the table, pausing in his eating. He and Pepper had taken to eating with Bruce when they got worried that maybe he wasn't eating at all. Bruce had been spending more and more time at Amrita's house, which Tony had taken over the payments for when it became evident Amrita wasn't going to be back before the first month was up. He had practically moved there from Stark Tower, but Tony was persistent in getting to at least spend two meals a day at the tower so that Bruce was getting both human interaction and food. He would never admit it out loud, but he was worried that Bruce was getting low again, and didn't want him making an attempt on his life like the scientist had admitted to doing once before, despite that it seemed the Hulk was protecting the man from biting the big one.

Bruce didn't look up, just started massaging his temples as though he was trying to soothe a headache.

"What," he said flatly.

Tony and Pepper shared a concerned look, and Pepper jerked her head in Bruce's direction, wordlessly telling the billionaire to do something to try and cheer him up. Tony frowned, nodding. He stood up from the table, only having a couple bites left on his plate anyway. He walked around the table to Bruce's side, clapping his friend on the shoulder strongly enough that the man released a huff of air as his stomach was forced forward into the edge of the table. Bruce glared at Tony, who adopted an innocent look.

"Come on, I have some schematics for an inspired suit I want your input on," he said, tugging the man up by the arm and pulling him towards the stairs to his work space.

"What, the other ones weren't inspired?" Bruce asked with a tone of dry amusement.

"No, no, they were. I just mean this one is particularly inspired, by your greener half, to be exact." Tony smirked. "It's going to be called, get this: the _Hulk Buster._"

Bruce rolled his eyes, but Tony was glad to see the hint of a smile on his lips.

"Uh-huh. Sounds catchy," Bruce drawled.

"Oh yeah. Everybody's gonna want one when they see it. It'll be a real chick magnet, just like the real deal," the billionaire said with a joking grin.

Maybe he could pull Bruce out of his rut yet.

* * *

Six months. Tomorrow would mark six months since Amrita had left, Bruce thought as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn't really feel like getting up for the day, but after a few minutes of doing nothing he reluctantly got up. Amrita wouldn't want him to dwell on the fact that she was gone. She would want him to carry on like he had been before she'd swept into his life.

(Honestly, though, he'd just gotten up because his bladder was full and he couldn't hold it anymore…)

Bruce went through the motions, showering, brushing his teeth, and getting dressed for the new day. He still thought about Amrita a lot and missed her, but he was trying to get on with his life. He had seen how worried Tony and Pepper had been about him when he was at his worst, and he knew that he didn't want to see them like that any more than they wanted to see him like he was.

Bruce padded out to the kitchen, looking around the room. It was starting to get a little dusty. He had been staying in Amrita's house for most of the time since she'd left, but he hardly used anything but the bedroom and bathroom, eating most of his meals with Tony and Pepper or eating out at a restaurant so that he wouldn't be sitting in the house alone while he ate. He found eating in the presence of others gave him more incentive to eat. When he took his meals alone, he found he had a tendency to either not eat much, or not eat at all, because he didn't feel it was worth the effort to make something just for himself. Shaking his head at the dusty kitchen, he vowed to clean it later when he got back from Stark Tower, shoving his feet in his shoes and heading out, using the walk from the house to the tower to clear his head. He had begun throwing himself into the work he and Tony were doing on developing and perfecting the suits. Ever since the Chitauri invasion, Tony had been adamant on creating the perfect suit, and had designed a whole array of different ones. The man was constantly working on them during his waking hours, only stopping when Pepper forced him into taking a few hours off, and Bruce couldn't blame the man. He'd almost died, after all, and now that he wasn't distracted from developing the suits by his worry over his friend, he was back to his usual devoted brainstorming and tinkering.

When Bruce walked into Stark Tower, he was surprised by the complete silence that hung in the air. Usually, by this point in the day, Tony would be blaring some heavy rock music while he puttered away in his lab, so it set off warning bells in the back of his mind that there was no noise. He silently slipped his shoes off by the door, padding further into the house in his socked feet. He heard murmured voices coming from the main floor living room, so he cautiously headed in that direction, trying to listen in to what was being said as he approached.

"It's for the best," said a voice that struck a chord in the scientist with its familiarity. He rushed into the living room, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight that greeted his eyes. He felt the air leave his lungs in one fell swoop.

"_Amrita…?_"

He didn't even take notice of the other people in the room; she was the only one he had eyes for as he rushed forward, Amrita moving to meet him halfway as they wrapped their arms around each other uncomfortably tight. Bruce buried his face in the crook of her neck, letting the tears that he'd refused to let fall when she'd left dampen her neck and shirt as he wept openly. Amrita peppered his neck and shoulder with kisses, stroking his hair soothingly and murmuring that it was going to be all right. She looked different now, her skin an olive tone, and her face shape was more heart-shaped than it had been before, her chin more prominent. But her hair and eyes were the same, and he knew that she hadn't forgotten him from the way she whispered sweetly in his ear, holding him tightly as he did her. In between the tears of relief at having her back were tears of grief at the fact that he knew she'd suffered enough to have died and been reborn in the time that she'd been outside of his reach.

"Dr. Banner, I'm sorry to interrupt your touching reunion, but we were just in the middle of discussing a rather important subject," Director Fury said, though he didn't seem to be as brusque as he usually was. He seemed almost…tolerant of the interruption, and Bruce was vaguely amused by the idea that the stone-cold Director might actually have been touched by the overly-emotional display. Bruce scrubbed at his face with his shirt sleeve, drying the tears as Amrita smiled at him, tugging him over to one of the couches to sit next to her. As he looked around the room, he noticed that not only was Director Fury there, but also Agent Hill, Natasha, and Clint, along with Pepper and Tony. The last two faces, however, took him off guard. Vishnu was there, but alongside of him was Lakshmi—the real deal this time, though, he assumed from the fact that Vishnu had his arm looped protectively around the woman's shoulders and kept glancing down at the woman, as though to make sure that she was still there despite the fact that he was touching her.

"Now. Please continue," he said, nodding at Vishnu.

The blue-skinned god nodded back.

"Thank you, Nick," Vishnu said, and Bruce had to refrain from snorting in amusement at Fury's expression of carefully controlled annoyance. He guessed gods didn't need to address the Director as respectfully as he demanded of the rest of the human race. He was surprised when the god looked at him specifically, nodding at him. He became a bit self-conscious about the fact that his hand was clasped tightly around Amrita's, remembering the comment she had made about Vishnu and Lakshmi basically being her parents. He sincerely hoped they weren't the overprotective types.

"Now that you've joined us, Bruce, I will fill you in on what we've been discussing," Vishnu said, glancing down at Lakshmi, who nodded encouragingly. He gave her a brief smile and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. "I apologize for the fact that we were gone so long. I hear that you did not take Garuda's absence easily," he said, giving the scientist a knowing look, raising one eyebrow slightly.

Bruce couldn't help the heat that rushed to his cheeks at that, and he avoided the god's gaze, not missing the smile on Lakshmi's face.

"Nevertheless," Vishnu said, clearing his throat. "Due to the trouble that the naga have managed to cause in this realm by traveling through the interdimensional rifts, I have met with the gods' council and we will be closing access to this realm except by council members such as myself. Even that will be limited and closely monitored by all members of the council, Nick, not to worry," he said, nodding at the man who had opened his mouth to say something. The one-eyed man pursed his lips, grudgingly accepting the assurance given that his planet's safety hung in the balance.

Bruce, however, was not comforted by the fact that only members of the gods' council were going to be able to open rifts to earth. He could feel a sinking feeling in his stomach at the thought, and he turned to Amrita, his expression grim.

"You're not a member of the council, are you," he asked, but it came out more of a statement. He felt he already knew the answer, and it was one he did not like.

Amrita gave him a wan smile, shaking her head. She opened her mouth to say something, but Vishnu began to speak, and she shut her mouth, her attention moving to him.

"Now, if that is all you need to know, Nick, we will be on our way. It was a pleasure meeting you all," the god said, looking around at everyone else and giving a polite nod in goodbye. He held out his arm that wasn't wrapped around Lakshmi, looking at Amrita with a small smile. "Come, Garuda."

Bruce's heart felt like someone had clenched their fist around it as he watched Amrita stand up, her hand slipping out of his as she crossed the room to her parent figures' sides, the both of them throwing their arms around her in an affectionate embrace. Bruce was glad that seemed happy with them; that she at least had the two of them, despite both of her birth parents having been dead for quite some time. He couldn't help being torn up over the fact that she was leaving with them, though. He would never hate her for it—could never hate her for it; after all, she had been with them for such a long time in comparison to the brief snippet of time she had been with him—but that didn't stop him from not wanting her to leave. As Vishnu opened a rift back to Vaikuntha and he and Lakshmi stepped back from their three-way embrace to step through into the forest that had appeared, Bruce couldn't stop himself from calling out Amrita's name, rushing over to her as she turned to him, looking surprised. He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her fiercely, pouring all of his emotions into the kiss and hoping that they were conveyed to her; all of the sadness, the desperation, the longing, and—dare he acknowledge it—the _love._ It was true, the saying that absence made the heart grow fonder, because despite that he hadn't seen her in what felt like forever, he had just grown more attached to her, noticing all the little quirks of hers that he missed when she was gone.

Bruce finally pulled back from the kiss when he felt he'd run out of air, and they stayed like that, faces centimeters apart, staring into each other's eyes as they breathed raggedly.

"Bruce…?" Amrita said, wide-eyed and seeming a bit dazed from the (literally) breath-taking kiss.

There was a pause, wherein Tony started clapping loudly.

"Woo! Five stars, brother, five stars," the billionaire said, grinning.

Bruce gave him a glare before sliding his gaze back to Amrita.

"Please don't leave," he said pleadingly as he wrapped his arms around her once more. He supposed he was like Vishnu in that regard. He'd lost her once; being in contact with her made him feel more assured, as if he wasn't at the risk of losing her again within just minutes of getting her back. "I just got you back. I missed you. Like, a _lot_," he stressed.

Amrita wrapped her arms around him in return, smiling against his shoulder.

"Bruce," she said in a gently chiding tone. "I'm not leaving."

Bruce pulled back, stunned.

"You…you're not?" he said hopefully, not quite daring to believe it.

She shook her head, smiling.

"Nope. Wasn't even planning on it."

He narrowed his eyes at her, frowning.

"Why'd you let me believe that you were, then? That's just cruel."

Amrita snorted.

"I didn't do it intentionally. Honestly," she said, tapping the side of his head with her finger. "For such a smart man, you can be a little thick sometimes… I made a deal with Vishnu."

Bruce raised his eyebrows.

"You made a deal," he reiterated.

She nodded.

"What kind of deal?" he asked, a little suspiciously.

She smiled, nodding at Director Fury, who nodded back.

"I'm going to be a sort of…liaison to earth for a little while, as per Vishnu's request. You know, build relations with the embassies and whatnot since it was our dimension that caused the threat to the planet, make sure they know we're not all hostile and we've taken measures to make sure nothing like that ever happens again."

Bruce nodded, not really sure how long 'a little while' meant, or if he really wanted to know.

"And in return…?" Bruce asked tentatively.

Amrita reached up and stroked her thumb across the scientist's cheek before smoothing out the worry lines wrinkling his forehead.

"I get to stay here for another fifty years," she said softly, before pressing her lips to his once more. He smiled into the kiss, relief flooding him.

He had his Amrita back; and with any luck, it would be for the rest of his life.

"Awww," he heard Tony say, but after a moment, the man seemed to change his mind. "Okay, I think the atmosphere in here is getting a bit too mushy for my taste. Anyone feeling up for some Indonesian cuisine? I hear there's this restaurant across town that makes a mean chicken satay."

There was the sound of Pepper smacking Tony's arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"I, for one, happen to think it's adorable," the woman said approvingly.

There was a snort.

"You know, I hate to say this, but I actually agree with Stark for once," Fury said blandly. "I believe it's high time for us to leave, agents."

"No, wait, I want you to say that again for the recorder, Fury," Tony said. "What was that about me being right?"

"You're skewing my words, Stark."

"No, no, it's the same thing."

Bruce and Amrita pulled back from their kiss, and Amrita rolled her eyes at the bickering between Tony and the director, Bruce responding with a knowing smirk.

"You know, Dr. Banner, I think this place is a little crowded for a reunion," Amrita said with a surreptitious wink at her bespectacled scientist.

Bruce pulled a thoughtful expression.

"You know, I think you just might be right," he said. "Any ideas on how we could remedy that, Dr. Mehrotra?"

Amrita grinned. "Well, as a matter of fact, I hear that there's this cute little beach house that's been sitting practically unused for a number of months now…"

Bruce laughed, allowing Amrita to pull him out of the house and down the familiar path towards her house. He was transfixed by her infectious laughter as she chatted away at him, every part of her as familiar as though she had never even left, except for her face. It was so easy to wrap his mind around the concept of it still being her, though, because all of her mannerisms were still there despite her looking different. He pulled her to a stop in her tracks, and she gave him a curious look before he leaned forward and kissed her once more.

"What was that for?" she asked, amused, as he drew back from the kiss.

He smiled, running a hand through her hair.

"Because you're here," he said simply.

Amrita gazed at him lovingly, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his forehead.

"Yes," she said. "I am."


End file.
